DocT01b - Middle Ages Modified: William Wallace

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Two things to consider before peace: 1) Taking Chippenham would seriously cripple England, since it has their lone Marketplace. 2) The HRE, on the other hand, is pretty useless for you - allowing size 4 Armies won't help you, since you cannot load them on boats then, and the Viking Sagas also work as heroic Epic .

 

[Chieftess]

They're showing William Wallace on the History Channel if you want to watch that now.

 

[Gobi Bear]

Start back up with some renaming. I have to recognize the heroes of the Battle of Bodmin Moor. Rename the three units in Cornwall as “Bodmin Hero 1” through “Bodmin Hero 3”. While in this renaming mood, I take all the cities that we founded since the start and give them more appropriate names. Galway (Ireland), Bamburgh (N. England), Rennes (France), and Thurso/Inverness/Skye (Scotland) all are created. The two settlers now found Celtic York and Celtic Cumbria on the sites of the former English cities. We then ask the Swedes to leave so we can attack first if they declare. For now they are good fellows who promise to leave. There is one tile still uncovered by cultural boundaries two spaces to the south of them. Will they go there?

7 Swords and 2 Spear head south toward Repton in a stack. Even if we agree to peace, I want to keep the pressure on throughout the turn.

OK, enough delaying. Time to try and steal the Holy Grail. I have a newly minted Warrior in Cornwall. Let’s see if he can weaken the English spear before I go in for the kill. Nicely done, he dies, but red-lines the English spear! Bodmin Hero 3, a 2/4 Sword, now goes in for the kill. Ain’t this purty…

And I pat myself on the back even further for having a Curragh handy so I can whisk it off to Ireland. Bodmin Hero 1 is an Elite Spearman. He is more than worthy to carry such a valued relic. By the end of the turn I have ferried it to Dublin. Llewellyn grasps the cup and raises it in the air for all of the Irish to see. The mighty grail is OURS!

OK, end of turn, and Mathilda is offering the same deal for peace. I go ahead and take it. We have Castle Building and can enter the Crusades tech tree next turn (after finishing Norse Tradition). Plus we are up to 97 Gold (+21 per turn). War has been very, very good to the Celts. Raise a glass of Guinness to Herne the Hunter and our other deities!

Our scout curragh is sailing up the Adriatic. Strange doings in Italy. There are German, Cordovan, and Swedish settlements there. What happened to the Burgundians??? We meet a Bulgarian curragh already there … their military and science is comparable to ours. I dial up Diplomacy with the Burgundians and it looks like they only have 3 cities left to trade. Someone has been feasting on them. And where is their relic???

Tech Report:
We are up Castle Building on Norway & Denmark & Kiev (who don’t have much gold)
Cordovans and Byzantines have Code of Laws
Everyone else seems to be on par (at least for standard techs)

IBT: England of course wants us to leave, and we have to go with the automatic troop movements. We also have to apologize to Theodora for passing through Byzantine naval space. She is so much pleasanter to deal with than Mathilda!
1089 AD: Galway: Horse->Horse. Ack! There is a Crusader in Repton. That would require that the English have finished that entire Christian tech tree! They are also building the Knights Templar wonder there.

The Swedes didn’t move. Perhaps that is for the best. If we force them to move to an open square, they will go ahead and settle. We ignore them for now.

Norway has finished researching Seafaring. We trade them Castle Building for Seafaring and 10 gold. Then we take Castle Building and trade it to the Danish for Smithing straight up. Love it when you can do that! Let’s hope the Kievan Rus research Viking Sagas for us … we’ll trade CB to them for that!

So what to research? Code of Laws -> Map Making is tempting (tons of good trades once you get maps in this one). So is Western Church so we can extort techs from the English. But I think Early Siegecraft->Medieval Combat so we can get our UU is the best plan. I start that. 26 turns, -7 gpt. I need to tweak the towns a bit I think to get it a little more quickly.

We start Blacksmiths in our three largest iron cities. Huzzah!

Rename Bodmin Hero 3 to Grailmaster. He deserves it.

IBT: Crusader appears guarding Chippenham too. Are the English upgrading all their Swords. Ugly if so.

Anyway, I am handing the file off to Warpstorm now (1 turn early). Have to go out to dinner and watch the Oscars. It is critical this year for a change. And this is a perfect handoff point to the next player, so I am doing it now before I move anyone in 1092 AD (the date of the First Crusade by the way).

1092 AD

 

[warpstorm]

I probably won't get to it tonight. Anyone have any pressing business that they think I should take care of in my reign? I imagine finishing England off is out of the question unless they start a war (unlikely). Since we are pretty much geared up for war, do we want to start one with someone else while we are waiting for the 20 turns to expire, or do we want reap the peace dividends (i.e. build up our forces more)?

 

[Chieftess]

The English also have knights, too, according to the foreign advisor.

 

[Gobi Bear]

I think ultimately it would help if we could get one more relic. Then we build Norse Saga (giving our ships +2 movement) and head to Jerusalem with 2 relics. That should give us a win.

It would be interesting to know if the Burgundian relic is still in their hands. If so, it might be a reasonable target.

One step in this needs to be establishing some embassies. We have no clue what is going on in Continental Europe. If we get an embassy and then ROP with someone, we could slip some horsemen onto the continent and try and find out what is cooking. Also need to head further up the Adriatic. I've noticed in previous Middle Ages games that parking a ship right outside Venice often gives very interesting intelligence.

Anyway, the cool thing about having the grail already is that we no longer HAVE to fight the English. I still assume we'll take them out eventually, but for once a war with them may not be the top priority. I'm sure you could get them to declare war easily if you do want to resume hostilities, but their Crusaders and Knights are a bit scary.

 

[warpstorm]

I'm not dead yet

 

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by warpstorm
I'm not dead yet

You mean they're not working you hard enough over there?

 

[warpstorm]

1092 AD: (Inherited turn) I micromanage taxes a bit. I get us even on taxes. My initial plan is follow Gobi's advice and look into finding out what is happening on the continent. Wow, Italy is in chaos. The five cities I can see are all from different empires.

IBT - Denmark wants 24 gold to remain our friend. I turn him down.

1095 AD: I decide to spend 45 of our meager gold supply to make an embassy with France. I try to get an ROP, but she wants 40. Too rich for my blood.

1098 AD: Armagh Horseman->Curragh, Cornwall Swordsman->Spearman

IBT - I see Venice (the capital of Burgundy) attacked. They survive but they lost at least 4 spearmen.

1101 AD: Thurso Barracks->Blacksmith.

1104 AD: Dublin Horseman->Horseman, Cork Spearman->Barracks, + 2 swords. I tweak taxation a bit more aggressively to keep us positive in cash-flow. We are going to have to declare another war soon just to justify cranking out all these units. I nominate Burgundy. They are weak, being battered, and nearby. They may even still have an artifact.

1107 AD: Armagh, Curragh->Horseman, Galway Horseman->Horseman, Skye Swordsman->Blacksmith. I find Dorestad, a Burgundian city near us just across the English Channel. It has a harbor. The only issue is the beachhead. I was hoping Joan would let us move through France, but she is too expensive for now. We have around 50 gold and are breaking even. She wants 40 for a ROP.

Advice? Comments?

More later...

 

[Gobi Bear]

I would think that until we have Galleys, you'll have to land the invasion force on the continent BEFORE declaring war on any one. It will be too slow to build up an invasion force with Curraghs otherwise. So paying for the ROP with France makes sense to me.

I believe the Burgundian relic starts in Italy, however, so not sure you'll find it in Dorestad. However, they may have a king unit there, and they may have lost some kings already (do you see that with F8?). So it could be a cool place to attack regardless. Getting a harbor on the continent might be very nice.

Who is attacking Venice by the way?

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

The Burgundian Relic starts in Venice - of course, now it could be anywhere else on the map as well, and I guess not even 'Steal Plans' would reveal it...

 

[Chieftess]

True. Once, I was playing as France (Burgandy was my ally - temporarily). Burgandy had their relic with a spear, who came all the way up to central Germany. Well, a German sword defeated the spear, and picked up the relic. Luckily, it was redlined, and I attacked the sword, and picked up the relic. I won the game with that relic IIRC.

 

[bobT]

I have to agree totally, a ROP is well worth the investment at this time.

 

[warpstorm]

1107 AD: (Continued) I decide to pay Joan for the ROP. I talk her down to 34 gold.

IBT - Venice is razed by the Castillans! Dorestad is now the capital.

1110 AD: Start shuttling some horsemen over to the continent.

1113 AD: Celtic York Temple->Blacksmith

1116 AD: Iverness Blacksmith->Swordsman, Celtic Cumbria Temple->Blacksmith

1119 AD: Armagh Horseman->Horseman. This is going to take forever to get enough units to the mainland using our small fleet. I think we ought to comission some more ships. (And attack England soon)

1122 AD: I do commision a ship in our capital.

You're up CT.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Hm, if Dorestad is now the Burgundian capital, you can scratch your war plans - taking it will turn all of Burgundy including Dorestad itself into rubble. And I'm not even sure if you could settle there without violating the Franks or German territory.

 

[Gobi Bear]

Wouldn't that give us all the Victory Points for eliminating the remaining Burgundian units? That might be a good thing... Unless you figure there are that few left. It would stink to not get that harbor from Dorestad. Any idea what happens if you kill everyone except the king? Does he run away?

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Yes, you will get 100 or so VPs for their remaining Spearmen

And you will get the Conquest VPs for Dorestad itself. But the city is lost, or Burgundian, no way around that. Bring a Settler, kill them, and once you have your UU, sign a RoP with Germany and take out the Danes; or kill the Castillians, they have lots of resources. With England in a GA (do they have Knights already?) that seem to be the only doable enemies right now...

 

[warpstorm]

They still have Naples in the south for now that I'm aware of. I don't know if all the rest of their royalty is in Dorestad though. In that case, we should probably attack England once it's clear to do it without a major rep hit. IIRC, Burgundy also starts with a city with royalty near the middle in the blackness.

Since we paid for it, we may as well use our ROP with France to scout out which of her neighbors might be attackable.

 

[Gobi Bear]

The current lineup:
1. Chieftess <-- up NEXT
2. BobT <- on deck
3. Gobi Bear
4. Warpstorm

 

[Chieftess]

ok, I'm gonna play all of my SG turns now. (I'm up in a couple...)