Expansive Dreams

[pigswill]

War against Wang will depend on how many hwachas he gets to build. So either go to war soon or wait for gunpowder and pick on someone else first, maybe Asoka.

 

[cripp7]

Pre-Turn
Switch uMg to a worker, will when at 2pop
Nothing else to do but hit enter

Turn 165
mine done in Nobamba so worker goes to clear jungle
our Impi scout goes south to checkout the China war
need to build some cash to run the slider higher
checking the trades we have a monopoly on aesthetics
swords in Ulindi go to take out the barbs

Turn 166
80%(-15)80 Lit due in 5

Turn 167
Spy destroyed our cat in Nobamba!
Sury demands stop deals with WvO..no

uMg worker>cat
raging winds event near Nobamba takes out our horsies

Since we're going to take out Wang Chung I picked up Calendar

Now we can get that dye, banana, sugar and silk hooked up

Turn 168
Toaism founded in Bombay
Wang has MC
worker gets started on dye
uMg cat for 2pop

Turn 169
Sury makes another demand..he hates the whole world anyway

Mao demand..can't

Turn 170
Sury captured The Hague from WvO
our swords arrive at Harappan. CR2C1 wins @80% odds, 2nd wins @72%, used an Impi to bring down the last archers defenses, 3rd sword wit C1CR1Cover takes the city.
No!BURN

Turn 171
Lit in go Currency
Ulindi settler>TGL 44t working all tiles, settler goes to iron/fish
uMg cat>cat
horse hooked back up move workers to banana
Trade with WvO

revolt to OR which should speed up TGL

Turn 172
TGL 33t with chops on the way
Iron Fish settled >monument

Turn 173
zzz

Turn 174
kwa library
dye, banana hooked up

Turn 175
kwa library>Impi
kill slider to build 30%(+3)
TGL 25t

Turn 176
barb sword popped up by Nobamba

Turn 177
JC makes a demand..no

Surry is going after WvO's capitol archer/sword/chariot defending! stupid AI
slider back to 60%
Nobamba cat
Barb sword attacked Nobamba, lost

Turn 178
Moa demend..ok

Nobamba cat>axe
I need to fogbust better around this city, barb swords are popping up fast
Bula worker>sword

Turn 179
Nobamba axe>impi
kwa axe>axe

JC declared on Surry, good keep him busy

Turn 180
uMg cat>cat
axe attacked barb and lost, other axe won. sent an impi out to fogbust that razed barb city


Stop here.

Our SoD is 8 swords, 3 axe, 5 cats. Wang has 4 archers, chariot, axe, hwacha in Wonsan so he's gearing up for protection but we'll take'm with no problem, keep a unit close to his iron to pilliage it when we declare to cutoff his metal.
Sorry about the lack of fogbusting, lost a worker due to barb but he died attacking the city.

 

[sturick]

Nice work Cripp!
It looks like we are well on our way to an impressive stack.

Just a few comments on things.

I think we need to temporarily fire at least one of the scientists in Ulundi.
We can't afford to shrink this city any more.

Our stack looks good! I think we need a few more cats and we will be ready to rock and roll!
Nobamba can add an impi and another cat to the stack.
Umung can add two more cats to the mix.
Kwa will add an axe and another cat (with whips here)
Bula can add the sword currently in production and a cat.

That would make a stack of...
11 cats
9 swords
3 axes
2 impis

Sounds like a SoD to me!

@Cripp:
Why did you attack the barb city with an impi when the sword would have had much greater odds to win???

Finally, we can trade Lit to WvO for the rest of currency and some cash.
Its a bit risky but I think we are close enough to locking down the GL that we can consider it.

If we do that then we can beg 150 gold from Wang.
That should give us enough time to finish assembling the stack while we wait out the 10 turn peace agreement.

Then we could beg/borrow/steal 110 from JC and 70 from Mao.

Personally I like it. What do you guys think?

Once again, good job building up a nice SoD Cripp!

 

[cripp7]

Impi attack, well that last sword was at 78%(if I remember right) odds, thought the Impi could soften him up some. I know it was not a good choice, but didn't want to chance the RNG on it.

 

[grandad1982]

Nice war prep cripp7.

Ok got the save. Can't play till monday now.

I like the idea of trying to get as much cash as possible from the AIs.

After Currency I'm minded to go for CoL as we'll want it to help reduce costs in our new and expanded empire. Metal Casting is also attractive in the near future.

All of these requests we keep turning down must be pissing some one off. Oh well what they going to do?! This is an angry little world we've landed ourselves on. Guess its going to be a millitary victory for us!

 

[narri]

May I take the free spot that is now available? This would be my first SG. I'm a Noble/Prince level player, so this would be interesting for me.

 

[grandad1982]

Well narri welcome onboard! This game seems like it might not be to difficult ATM so its a good chance to up your game by a level or two.

To everyone. I'm off to play so I'll be posting in a few hours.

I'll get some more units our and trade around a bit of tech too.

 

[muxec]

Lurker(so far!) comment:

Looks like Sury is going to take Amsterdam. Preferably after he kills Willem. Ideally Amsterdam will be still revolting when your stack arrives. You should declare on Sury and get Amsterdam for yourself for yourself. You will gain diplo with JC and afterwards you can bribe someone of you have trouble finishing Sury.

Willem did not build the Shrine yet. So you may want to generate a prophet by yourself with most of the world in Christianity.

Proposed victim order: Sury, Asoka, Caesar, WK if not won yet.

As for Currency tech: hammer economy is FTW with Shaka.

 

[grandad1982]

Sorry about the delay in not posting last night but after I played I couldn't get on the internet.

PFT

First off I decide to remove our EP from Wang as it won't serve any purpose now or after we attack.

I trade for currency.

Currency > CoL

I go through all off the AIs with money to spare (Wang, Asoka, JC, Mao and Sury). They all say yes and we are 480 gold better off! I put sci up to 100% for CoL in 5. Only Asoka and Sury got pissed off by the begging.


1

No, Impi > Cat


2

Wang wants to trade. I say no as Monarchy isn't that important to us at the moment and I want to see if we can trade currency about later.

Spoiler :

Bula, Sword > Cat

A pasture is destroyed.

Spoiler :

Sury captures the Dam and Willem makes peace.

Sury cancles our corn pig trade.


3

Trade to Mao.

Spoiler :

4

Asoka wants to trade for monarchy. I say no as its not a tech I want right now and also I don't want to give him currency anyway.

Spoiler :

I whip the Axe in Kwa.

Umg, Cat > Archer

Asoka founds a city on the former barb city to our W.


5

CoL is in. After deliberating what to do I decide to go for HBR in the hope if we part tech it we can trade for it.

Kwa, Axe > Cat


6

Wang DoWs!!! On Sury!!!! WTH? Bribe maybe?

Umg, Archer > Archer (I'm thinking of garrison troops here).

No, Cat > Courthouse (not got many cottages yet dispite being designated a commerce site, so it has more impact than a market).

I drop sci to 50% to stop us hemoraging money.


7

Suprisingly nothing of note. Unless I made a mistake in my notes


8

Asoka demands we cancle our deals with Mao. I say no as he is a natural victim of ours and Mao is a natural friend in this game.

Spoiler :

9

Umg, Archer > Archer

Bula, Cat > Market


10

Iron Fish, Monument > Ikhanda

I bump sci to 70% for HBR in 1


11

HBR > CS

Start to move stack to strike point.

Umg, Archer > HA


I stop here as there is a war to plan and things to discuss.


Info

Spoiler :

We're actually rather popular! No one really likes Sury or Asoka.

As you can see Mao will DoW Sury for a bribe. I forgot to check what he'd want. Probably a couple of techs.

We're doing ok in tech here. Asoka has Theo so maybe we should be expecting him to build the AP at some point.

Doing really well but our economy still blows.

So I selected CS as a place holder but I also think its the best choice for our next tech (Buear capital will be sweet). What do you guys reckon?

On the diplo front I think we need to befriend and help JC and Mao as they are enimeis of Sury our biggest rival. Mao will DoW on Sury if we bribe him. Do we want to? I think its a good idea since Sury hates others more than us and will keep him divided and at war with his back to us.
Asoka doesn't like us much so I think he need to be slapped down in our second war to bring us close to Surys back. When we hit Wang keep an eye on Asoka's movements as he might (but probably won't) sneak one in on us.

What do you reckon to the a blocking city here?

Spoiler :

What do you reckon to the plan of attack?

Spoiler :

So we get the troops to "strike point" then move onto the iron and raze it using an Impi. Then 1NW and attack Wonsan. I'd say keep this city. Then straight on to Seoul. Rinse and repeat. Watch out for pillagers.

One thing I forgot to do was trade Currency around but it just never felt right to me. I wanted to trade for HBR and MC but MC was going to cost a lot (in hindsight not much as Aes is a cheap tech now), and no one wanted to trade HBR apart from Willem and he didn't want anything we had.


Roster
Grandad1982
Charles Li - AWOL
Sirloin - up now
sturick - on deck
cripp7
narri - welcome onboard!

The save

 

[muxec]

Are you still sure about attacking Wang?

May I take the place of the deserter?

 

[Sirloin]

Got it. I'm always willing to play promptly and can play tonight to keep things moving but if people would rather I wait so we can discuss strategy thats fine as well. I think most of the upcoming decisions are tactical rather than strategic since we've got a huge stack ready to soften up the wang.


Items before I play:

1. Expansion to block Asoka. Not necessary. If we wanted to block we should have kept the barb city. The land to the south isn't that great anyways, and India is probably going to fall soon after korea. If we really do want to found a blocker, we should do it 1S of your recommended spot so at least we're coastal. Plainswine and Desertspice are poor tiles anyways. I'm not going to make any moves toward founding a city here now; a later player is welcome to consider it.

2. Strikepoint on WK. I'm going to strike from 1W of your marked square so I can move within range of the city on the turn I DOW. The iron will be pillaged separately by an Impi; no need to use the whole stack to pillage.

3. Last minute trade with WK. This is the one area I'm mulling over and would like the team's input. WK will trade Metal Casting for Lit+HBR and 25g and I'm inclined to take it. This is going to be a really short war, and I don't think we're at any risk from horse archers; on the contrary I'd rather he build those than hwatchas (or more defenders). HArchers can't touch impis.

4. Stack composition. Very strong; wiping out WK will be easy. I won't be able to take his capital on my set but I'll have Wonson in the bag and I'll be at the gates for the next player. I'd prefer a few more Impi and Axes in the stack but I'll just reinforce with Impi + HArchers while I'm on the move.



@muxec: We're attacking WK now because he's very close, weak, and has a ridiculous food capital for a GP pump. Sury is too far away and he's a lot stronger (unsure of his exact power right now). At best we could only clip his growth and be left with detached cities. I'd rather consolidate our economic core now with the addition of nearby cities from korea and india, and wipe out WK+Asoka so we don't any cultural problems, and then expand from there. I expect Sury to be our main rival but I'm inclined to kill/maim him later with maces/knights or rifles/grens (depending on pace) to round out a dom win.

 

[narri]

While the main army is going to the strike point, I suggest the following:

1) OB with WK
2) Take an Impi and go through WK's lands, so you know what defense he has.
3) That same Impi should end up just outside of WK's borders near the horses at Pyongyang after a few turns.
4) Get MC for whatever WK asks for (which at the moment is Lit+HBR+25)
5) DOW to your hearts' content, pillage the horses with the Impi in addition to the Iron (so the HBR trade does nothing for him).
This gives WK time to get his stack closer to Sury's lands and further away from the defense.



Actually, good point about seeing HA rather than those special catapults. Trade and DOW immediately.




I agree with the revised strike point (1W of original). Only one unit need to pillage iron.

The blocking city should wait until the WK war is done and (more importantly) our economy can handle such a city. Remember that when the war begins we'll probably be (close to) losing money at 0% research, so our blades must be swift. But it's such an awful position I'm inclined to not get that city at all.

Another thing is that I can see Asoka DOW on us after we DOW on WK, so be on guard.

Nice turnset.

 

[cripp7]

Your plan sounds solid Sirloin, go ahead

 

[Sirloin]

Just played 10 turns of an action-packed set.

I'll post a detailed summary tomorrow since its pretty late and this deserves some effort. The save is posted if you want a peek, but for the juicy details you'll have to stay tuned to find out...

(*) The exploits of the ruthless Asoka, who declared on us the turn after we dow'ed on Korea.
(*) WK's diverted assault stack "Gravy Train" which veered off course en route to Sury for a surprise visit to Nobamba, which led to the frenzied emergence of the Urgent Defenders
(*) The adventures of our two guerrillas who were so enraged by Asoka's treachery that they took matters into their own hands: "Crazy Carl", who singlehandedly burned a fortified hilltop Indian city to the ground, and "Wild Willy" who reconnoitered solo deep behind Indian lines to sabotage India's only Iron mine and murder an escorted settler.

When I wasn't busying RP'ing my harassment of Asoka, I managed to actually execute some real combat with Korea: In a lightning blitz, I captured Wonson and Seoul in 7 turns of war, with a loss of 1 cat 1 sword for each city. Seoul should have been flawless but I lost a CR3 sword at 94% odds. Stonehenge is ours along with more food than a city should have.

Spoiler :

 

[cripp7]

good work

Shocker seeing Osaka declaring on us! Battle of Nobamba should use the cat with a B1 upgrade and knockdown Wang's stack so it won't be very strong, then use our defenders to mopup. Or let him suicide his stack.

Now our stack at Seoul should move in to heal then go and finish Wang's last city. Send the HA or an Impi to see what he has there, if something small could split our stack to go for Wang and Osaka's Vija city. We can sick Mao on Osaka for CoL, JC for Lit, which I think we should do just to keep him busy. Maybe they'll knock'm down a bit.

After this war we need to rebuild our economy, markets, courts+ikhanda -70% maintenance, etc.. which we're @20%. Looks like the barb city to the E is a good spot to take. Once our economy is better we can start settling the south. Where should FP go?

Overall we're doing good!

 

[narri]

Good job on the warmongering!

The best way to get rid of the threat near our city is to eliminate WK's last city (the units will vanish afterward). The GG that's sitting in one of our cities should become a super medic (either an impi on the field already or make a scout). I say take Pyongyang with our entire force, then start working on Asoka right away. Meanwhile all cities should get Ikhada/Courthouse soon enough to reduce our maintainance (and possibly get Forbidden Palace in a western Asoka city we end up capturing). Then we can power our large empire to a tech lead and win however we want.

Another thing would be to make a settler and catch that Ivory in the northeast and mix in some Elephants to the stack of (ever-increasing) doom.

 

[Sirloin]

Detailed report from my set:

190 (250) (inherited): 2 pop to finish GLib in Ulundi.
I make a few minor adjustments to our cities (Nobamba was still working the horse tile that was RNG destroyed; its better to hire a scientist while we wait for the rebuilding).
I change Ironfish's build order and tile selections to get a galley/workboat to coincide with its border pop.
Offensive stack looks good; shouldn't be too much trouble with WK.
One concern: I'm wary about our city garrison; we have 1 archer in our northern border city and 1 archer + 1 axe in Nobamba. We really need more Impi and axes.
I go ahead and trade HBR/Lit to WK in exchange for MC. I consider starting a few forges, but I'd really rather have more units right now.
Scouting: I take an Impi that's over near Sury and move him to inspect the Dutch carnage

191 (265): Sury wants Currency for Monarchy; no thanks. Our SOD needs two turns to get into position for Korea.

192 (280): Sury wants us to attack JC. I refuse, and Sury becomes annoyed.
Bad news: Wonson (our first Korean target) just put up walls. One turn until DOW.

193 (295): WK starts off the turn with a request for Open Borders. I had something else in mind. Before I declare, I catch a peek at WK's stack which is headed for Sury (whom he is at war with):

Spoiler WK Stack :

Our stack is in position, so its time; I declare on WK and jump the border.

194 (310): Asoka declares on us! We knew it was coming but I wasn't expecting it so soon. He attacks one of our fogbusting axes with an axe and loses. To make matters worse, WK has redirected his stack towards Nobamba, which has a pitiful defense of 1 archer 1 axe. Good thing I at least put a wall up here on my last set.
WK's stack has gained a sword and a chariot from what I saw earlier and consists of:
1 Sword, 1 Hwacha, 2 Chariots, 3 archers. Not a massive force, but its only two squares from our city.

Time to break out the panic defense:
Nobamba whips an Impi, overflows into Archer
uMung city whips a nearly complete HA, overflows into Impi
We have 3 workers in the vicinity which can emergency chop a forest in 2 turns which I will put into another archer or an axe.
I have one extra catapult that rolled off the line too late to join our main stack so I will send it west for a siege defense.

On the Korean front, with those new walls our cat stack can't even fully bring down the walls in our first round of siege. There is now a hwacha in Wonson, so I promote one sword to medic, and move a fresh combat horse archer onto the stack to defend against it.

I take some time to survey the Indian front. Asoka's offensive stack is not visible. I anticipate it will head for Nobam, but Kwa may be a target as well. I'm going to focus on Nobam's defense and if Kwa needs help I can divert some units from our offensive stack.
I send my Impi that was scouting the Dutch area towards India so I can get some recon.
I notice that the recently founded Indian city on the western ex-barb site is defended by a single spearman. Our fogbusting axe that he attacked is nearby and gets a promotion which mostly makes up for his strength lost in battle. I send him towards the city and shuffle an Impi onto his old hill to continue to watch against barbs.

195 (325) WK doesn't attack our stack with his Hwacha, fortunately. I finish off Wonson's defensive bonus with 3-4 cats and start turning the screws:
He has about six defenders now (I didn't record the exact units) and he's on a hill.
1. Suicide a cat
2. CR3 sword loses at 63% odds
3. CR3 sword wins at 72% odds
with some careful management of attacking cats, axes, swords, and our HArcher, no other units die. Wonson is ours for the price of one cat and one sword! Those CR3 swords really help.
We get a granary and a forge ... good thing I grabbed MC.

No time to rest and bask in our victory: we've got Seoul to take and I only have five turns to do it! I split my stack and send the remaining cats that have movement pts left along with a couple defenders through captured Wonson to get a 1 square head start through the mountains towards Seoul.

WK's counterattacking stack is now at the gates of Nobamba but we've got a good hurry-up defense there with more coming as the trees fall and the whips crack. I whip again in Nobamba to finish another archer. I'm confident our defense will hold if WK attacks next turn.

196 (340) Sury captures one of JC's cities and then makes peace. WK decides not to attack Nobamba (very doubtful he could have captured it anyways) and instead cats its defense from 50% to 46%. He won't have any cities left by the time he gets it to zero!
For Nobam, I have more reinforcements coming in from uMung, and the emergency lumberjack squad will fell a tree this turn to finish an axe. Impi -> Archer -> Axe from one commerce city in 3 turns is pretty solid. WK has missed whatever narrow window existed.

In Korea, the war machine rolls. I leave 1 archer, 1 impi, 1 axe in Wonson with no counterattackers anywhere in sight and point the rest towards Seoul. My advance force will start working on the defense bonus.

197 (355)
More defense for Nobamba, its definitely safe now

Spoiler :

Time for some guerrilla warfare against India!
My lone axeman, Crazy Carl, has scaled the south face of India's new city. He's at strength 4.7 which is plenty to slaughter the spearman.

Spoiler Crazy Carl :

Farther north, my Impi scout, Wild Willy, has arrived in Indian territory. He wants to get Asoka's Iron, but he needs to sneak by the city of Patilputra. There is a swordsman inside but no axe. With a melee-bonus promotion, he'll be safe as long as he stays in the forest. I'm going to move 1 NE and stop in that forest, then next turn I can pop onto the Iron and pillage it the same turn.

Spoiler Wild Willy :

198
Crazy Carl is on a rampage. He find a worker escorted by an Axeman and steals it.
Wild Willy moves to the forest and lies in wait with his eyes on the prize: Iron.
Our advance forces arrive at Seoul and begin bombardment. The defensive bonus is high, but there are only 4 defenders and its not on a hill: the main force won't have a problem.

199
As Wild Willy is about to spring out of his hiding place he spots an escorted Indian SETTLER. He murders an archer and limps off to the western plains where he'll be out of range from a counterattack from Delhi. He leaves the captured worker on the road to die.
Seoul's defense is reduced to 12%. One turn left in my set!

200
Wild Willy is still on the prowl and Indian never counterattacked the stolen worker, who is still wandering on the road. Willy arrives again, pillages the Iron mine, and sends the worker into the jungle towards our homeland.

Seoul: Still have two CR3 swords at full strength. First one leads the charge and LOSES at 94% He only did 0.7 damage to the archer! I was expecting a perfect assault, so I send in a suicide cat to soften them up. The remaining attackers whittle away the koreans without any further losses.

Seoul is ours!

Spoiler :

I notice we need two more victories for a GG, so I find a chariot to snipe with an Impi, and send another after an archer. He only has a 60% shot but wins and we get our GG. I exhibit some hubris in choosing his name.

Whew, exciting set! Thanks for all the good military buildup that made it so fun.

Just a few notes headed forward since I'm tired of so much typing:
Econ needs to be firmed up. Markets + Courts will do the trick
Lets get a National Epic up in Seoul as soon as possible.
Attach the GG to a fresh Impi, promote to medic III and then use future promotions on woodsman to create a supermedic.
Once the GG is attached, we can build the Heroic Epic in uMung.
Finish off Korea and hit India immediately.
I ran double scientists in Ulundi as much as possible to get our GS out soon. I haven't looked closely but I'm thinking bulb Philo. Need to double check our research.


Roster
Grandad1982
Charles Li - AWOL
Sirloin - played
sturick - up next
cripp7 - on deck
narri

(The save is in a prior post a few up)

 

[grandad1982]

Nice set and a good write up too Sirloin.

I love Seoul. Its going to really push out those GPs with all that food.

On a slightlly relateds and forward looking note... Once Asoka is slapped down should we switch to Cast? We could change to Bureaucracy at the same time.

I agree with your summery at the end about what we need to do.

Will look at the save and post more thoughts in a bit.

@Muxec. Sorry dude you where just a little slow on requesting a spot as I'd already been contacted by Tynion for the place. If you'd like to go on the reserve list just say. Despite that please keep lurking and feel free to comment!

So the new roster is
Roster
Grandad1982
Tynion - welcome onboard
Sirloin
sturick - up now
cripp7 - on deck
narri

 

[grandad1982]

Oh yer.

@narri
I found it quite hard to read the writing in the light coloured font. KNow what I mean?

 

[sturick]

Excellent report and results Sirloin!
Well worth the wait.

I read the report over lunch so no time to comment on much.

However, I feel you definitely earned your hubris with successful warring, pillaging and garrison whipping!