Fox-03 -- Trying to be Special

GreyFox · Apr 25, 2006

Okay, its late here, so sorry, no nice story this time round.

A builder's turn mostly, no action ... okay, 3 action: JC's cat suicide on our axe on hill at Karakorum, sank a JC galley, and our longbowman killed JC's archer at Hamburg.

Initially, someone told us this:

Then, Kublai come begging for peace.

let me think, fatso .... nope!
For the fun of it, I negotiated, demanding everything he has except cities ....

and surprise, surprise, he accepted! Sh!t, there goes the war action I was hoping for!!! :aargh:

But not a bad deal, IMHO, we got 2 techs, and have 10 turns to built up our military before going for the final blow. Not to mention ridding ourselves of WW problem which is starting to hit us.

Meanwhile, I tried for the great library, turn out to be a wealth-building excercise:

Also, sometime earlier, the war trumpet sound ... who is the unlucky one???

It is Louis vs Asoka!

This is miserable tiny archer JC sent to us ...

End-turns, I forgot abt the war between Louis and Asoka, and traded with Louis ...

... may take a hit on our relationship with Asoka.

Also, I tested JC on his resolve in war ....

Nope, he did not take it. Fine, let's contnue spitting on whatever salad he throws to us.

I have also turned our science back to 40% (only! :eek:

), after upgrading some swords (mostly at Hamburg) to maces. Still have money for 1 or 2 more upgrades. I would think twice before upgrading one of the sword in Karakorum, because with 1.61, the upgrade will cause the sword drop from 19xp to 10 xp.

Forces are mostly ready to take Ning-Shia and Turfan. Have to wait 2 more turns I think. Meanwhile, Alex has pillaged all he can from Ning-Shia ... that greedy bastard.

New Roster
-- GreyFox == Just Played
-- Rex == UP Enjoy Your War!
-- blid == On-Deck
-- kikinit
-- namliaM
-- Bede

The order is now Asia - US - Europe - Asia - Europe - US, let see if this will shorten the turnaround time. I'm also interested to see if the first half is slower than the second half.

The Save:

GreyFox · Apr 25, 2006

I know I forget something ... for those interested in details, here it is:

Spoiler :

blid · Apr 25, 2006

nice Grey,
Getting two techs from the bastard who is dying anyway. For info, you can know what the guy is ready to offer by clicking the "Let us bury the hatchet. What is the price for peace". Just reload Bede save and try it. He will be offering the two techs, 110g and 1 gpt.

I am not 100% sure but I don't think tech trades count for "You traded with our worst enemy" malus. However, open borders do. So I'd suggest dropping open borders with Asoka before Louis XIV asks to. This way, we can avoid the "You stopped trading with us" from Asoka and the "You refused to stop trading with our worst enemy" from Louis altogether.

JC won't give up on a tech unless we hurt him. Wouldn't mind signing peace with JC before declaring on Kublai. JC is offering a little money (very little) and it would also help with WW

P.S : We are number one in power :eek:

. I've never had this in a game before being very close to dom

Bede · Apr 25, 2006

blid said:
P.S : We are number one in power . I've never had this in a game before being very close to dom

Maybe that will keep the greedy rat bastids off our backs for a while. And we can get on with the business of staying on their backs.

Kikinit · Apr 25, 2006

Does anyone else think that the fat mongolian looks like my avatar?

Anyway nice turns greyfox. Suing for 2 techs is always good. My other SG, Fear of Flying has done this successfully a couple of times now and it's worked great. It is something I am going to practice on a more regular basis.
.

Rex Tyrannus · Apr 25, 2006

Got it. Playing in 10 minutes. Posting thereafter.

GreyFox · Apr 25, 2006

@Blid: 110gold? I am pretty sure I dried up his coffers. unless you count in the 1 gpt x 10 turns. I never knew the "Let's Bury the Hatchet" thingy ... I used to think that it is not the AI's bottomline, so I never bother. I always go sue for the maximum and starting reducing until he agree or until I think it is not worth it.

Right abt the Asoka Louis duel, perhaps the next player have taken care of it.

However, I won't bother with Roman peace treaty. We suffer no WW from the war with JC (as far as this Roman War is concerned, we are on the defensive, so no WW). As I said in the report, all WW are gone once the war with Mongolia ends. So, I would keep the war ongoing, once we take Turfan, we have direct access to JC's land. Then we go wake up JC's idea, and tell this to his face (while stepping on his I-made-it-myself salad, of-course): "YOU HAVE CHOOSEN UNWISELY. Now, give me a tach or two, with gold on the side, and then we would talk peace."

@Kikinit: Nope. At leaset the peon is cuter ....

--

Rex Tyrannus · Apr 25, 2006

Sorry for the lack of screenies, guys. I'm under huge time crunches lately.

Inherited turn

I first check the diplomacy screen. We're at war with JC. Alex is still at war with Kahn. Louis and Asoka at it, too. JC's attitude to us is -10. Asoka is 0. Kahn is 0 (he likes our civics). Louis is +4. Alex is +3 and Qin is +1.

So our two best hopes in the popularity contest are Alex and Louis. Those are two guys I never try to triangle with as they're both as fickle as the weather in Boston. However, they're +8 and +9 toward each other. The one thing that keeps me skeptical is that they are both Hindu while we're the Holy Confucian Empire.

Either way, I'll disagree with Blid and wait until Louis asks us to cancel trade with Asoka. I'll then do it and get the diplo bonus.

Scanning our Empire, I have to assume Fox has stayed within the variant and is only building Kosher stuff. Also, no MM is necessary.

Hit enter.

IBT JC Moves a couple of galleys into Karakorum's aquaspace. One is empty and sitting on our northernmost clams. The other has two horse archers.

Turn 1

London: Longbow => Galley.

I must say, someone set me up nice for some serious ass-kickin. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait one more turn to do it.

IBT JC's galleys have both skirted around our northern galleys. I'll have to do something about that.

Turn 2

Hamburg: Longbowman => Crossbowman. Munich: Maceman => Heroic Epic (due in 4).

Qin finishes Chicken Itch.

I declare against Kahn and move an F--load of troops into his territory. I keep a few back though because I don't trust Caesar. I looked to see what sort of peace deal he'd give us, and it was only about 170 gold + 2 per turn. He refused when I asked for Compas.

IBT JC's dumb. He unloaded his two stinking horse archers right in front of Karakorum, where we have more than enough troops to deal with them. He could have continued around south and really made me nervous for many turns. Oh well.

Turn 3

Karakorum: Mace => Spear. I thought we could build Pikemen already. Guess not. I build a spear as I notice we don't have a whole lot of defense against mounties. Probably because we can't build pikes.

Asoka adopts vassalage.

Our forces are now one tile from each of Kahn's remaining cities. Both are garrisoned lightly, with 2 longbows in each plus assorted sundry.

IBT Caesar's horses don't suicide against the city, as I'd hoped. Instead, they pillage the one farm I wasn't able to put a mace on. This is no biggie. They'll both be dead come tomorrow. One of Caesar's galleys sinks one of ours defending our fish net. Odds must have been well in our favor. I'll check the combat log later.

Turn 4

Qin offers us Pigs for Dye and I accept. Louis then asks us to cancel deals with India and I accept. Finally Caesar offers us 70 Gold for peace. What part of "sit on it" don't you understand?

Cologne finishes a library, and I start the Colossus, due in 6.

I begin the battles for Kahn's nuts and pull a :smoke:

move. I hit the wrong upgrade on a cat and we now have a combat I catapult. Yay!

Anyway, six cats take Ning-Hsai from 50% to 5%. A double raider mace still only has 23% odds against the double garrison longbow, but it's better than the earlier 7.3%.

Send in the first double raider mace and he loses without winning a single round. Son of a :rant:. Let's try this again. I send in a combat I + Cover + raider I mace and he loses too, but drops the bow to 2.4 strenght. Better.

Another Mace finishes him off, then an Axe takes out the spearman defender. Surprisingly, Kahn had moved the other longbow out towards Greece IBT.

Anyway 91 Gold for the capture. I raze Ning Hsai because it was too close to Delphi.

On to Turfan. Much like Ning, it has a double garrison longbow. It also has another longbow (single garrison) and some other riff raff. I only have three cats in this raiding party, so I reduce defense to 27 and will wait another turn (at least) before taking the city.

One thing that puts a damper on this is F---ing JC's horse archers. I send in two maces, each with 78% odds. The first wins, but the second loses. I'm having rotten luck this set. [pissed]

IBT nada mucho. Wait, apparently Alex's lone cat knocks Turfan's defenses to 20% (from 27%). Thanks, buddy.

Turn 5

Berlin: Galley => Crossbow

Thanks to Alex, our three cats take Turfan's defense down to 0%. Super sweet. Though we still don't have enough forces to take the city without heavy casualties. We have a mace, many axes, and two spears. Next turn will bring another mace and sword pair and maybe Alex will be dumb enough to send his Phalanx into the city.

I took a small risk and took our one remaining guard-galley off the net to attack JC's wounded galley, now that ours had healed. 88% odds and we won. Back to guard duty.

IBT Asoka shows up and wants Drama + 260 gold for Compass. I'd take it if we hadn't promised Louis that we'd stop trading with his worst enemy. Also, Alex moves some troops up to Turfan.

Turn 6

Hamburg: Crossbow => Mace

Alex's Phalanx and Cat are no where to be seen, but he moved a sword and a horse archer up to the city. Not much help. So I decide to suicide some cats. The first withdraws after taking +2 Longbow to 4.2 and everyone else down about 10%

OMG OMG OMG I take back every :rant: I've ever thrown at the RNG. My first cat withdrew against the double garrison bow and my second won outright! 0.2% odds on the first and 1.8% on the second. Holy sh!t. I should go buy a lottery ticket.

Of course, then I got all full of myself and tried the third cat. It died without winning a round. And it looks like the collateral damage was nill, too. :shrug:

Okay send in the mace and he dies at 68%. Stupid RNG :rant:

WTH??? My axe loses to that same bow at 81%. Double rant!

Okay, so another axe and a sword kill the last two axes. All Kahn's got left is one longbow at 0.5 strenght. We have two spears available to attack and we must kill it in this turn or Alex will take the city IBT.

I'm stopping here to let the group decide whether to keep the city. I'm leaning toward keep myself.

Once the group decides, I can finish tomorrow AM or let the next guy get it.

Bede · Apr 25, 2006

Keep it! Keep it! Keep it!

Does that count as three votes?

GreyFox · Apr 25, 2006

In fact I will advocate keeping both Ning Shia and Turfan. But since NS is already reduced to dust and rumbles, it is moot.

I'm not particularly concerned with cultural pressure. We are creative, remember? We can deal with cultural pressure in due time. Granted initially we will be pressured. But once a threatre, library, temple is up, it is Alex that should worry abt it.

Even without screenies, your report is always a pleasure to read. Keep the hammer hammering!!!! We want Tech from JC before he can have a 10-turn peace.

--

namliaM · Apr 26, 2006

GreyFox said:
In fact I will advocate keeping both Ning Shia and Turfan. But since NS is already reduced to dust and rumbles, it is moot.

Eh, what? Why raise Ning Shia? :cry:

Culture bulture... :cry:

Our/my nice little Science city, I counted on it beeing captured. Take and keep Turfan... I would say

GreyFox said:
Even without screenies, your report is always a pleasure to read. Keep the hammer hammering!!!! We want Tech from JC before he can have a 10-turn peace.

Yep nice log...

New Roster
-- GreyFox
-- Rex == Enjoyed his war
-- blid == Up to bother JC
-- kikinit == On Deck
-- namliaM
-- Bede

GreyFox · Apr 26, 2006

namliaM said:
New Roster ....

AH, now you are ahead of yourself, namliaM. rex have not finished. He merely stopped to asked if we want to keep/raze Turfan. He played only 6 turns.

blid · Apr 26, 2006

rex_tyranus said:
Either way, I'll disagree with Blid and wait until Louis asks us to cancel trade with Asoka. I'll then do it and get the diplo bonus.
...
Louis then asks us to cancel deals with India and I accept.
...
IBT Asoka shows up and wants Drama + 260 gold for Compass. I'd take it if we hadn't promised Louis that we'd stop trading with his worst enemy.

Thought that stopping trading causes civ to refuse talkin' for a while. It seems I was wrong (earlier version maybe). However, I never experienced a negative attitude from tech trading with other's enemies. Please correct me if I am wrong. I find the compass trading with Asoka worthwhile

rex_tyranus said:
London: Longbow => Galley.

is this germany capital ?

rex_tyranus said:
Hamburg: Longbowman => Crossbowman. Munich: Maceman => Heroic Epic (due in 4).

We didn't have this already ? Nice catch

rex_tyranus said:
Finally Caesar offers us 70 Gold for peace. What part of "sit on it" don't you understand?

rex_tyranus said:
Cologne finishes a library, and I start the Colossus, due in 6.

As I was thinkin we were having a wonderless game. Nice catch too, with all the coastal cities. Wait a minute, this is a commerce wonder, Cologne is ... Hybrid, saved

rex_tyranus said:
Anyway 91 Gold for the capture. I raze Ning Hsai because it was too close to Delphi.

West side was covered with culture from other cities. I wouldn't have minded unless for border problems with Alex

rex_tyranus said:
I'm stopping here to let the group decide whether to keep the city. I'm leaning toward keep myself.

Keep it I would say. Too good a spot. Alex did some nice cleaning there. Not a single road remaining

I would have gone spears instead of crossbows. I don't like to use maces against HA and crossbows have poorer odds against them.

GreyFox said:
@Blid: 110gold? I am pretty sure I dried up his coffers. unless you count in the 1 gpt x 10 turns. I never knew the "Let's Bury the Hatchet" thingy ... I used to think that it is not the AI's bottomline, so I never bother. I always go sue for the maximum and starting reducing until he agree or until I think it is not worth it.

Guess you signed a turn or 2 later. I did this test on turn 0.
As for the "bury hatchet ...", I find this useful, it even works for other trades with "What would make this deal work".
I thought too first that there was no way to know if deal was optimal unless you do the tedious job of changing the trade with small amounts. With civ3 the advisor would tell you if the trade will work and with a dichotomy process you can converge to the optimal trade much faster

GreyFox said:
AH, now you are ahead of yourself, namliaM. rex have not finished. He merely stopped to asked if we want to keep/raze Turfan. He played only 6 turns.

Guess I'm not UP

GreyFox · Apr 26, 2006

Well, blid, rex promised to play it "tomorrow AM", since he is in charlotte, his AM should be your evening. So you may very well get to play tonight (your night, that is).

I'll imagine trading tech would also incurs trading-with-worst-enemy penalty, but that's just my guess.

Ah, a bit late for Colossus ... Astronomy is just around the corner ... but its okay. Whatever it takes to help us dig ourselves out of the war-induced economy hole.

Maces will kill HA anyday, why don't you like to use maces vs HA? Of-course Pikeman is the most optimal ...

--

blid · Apr 26, 2006

GreyFox said:
Maces will kill HA anyday, why don't you like to use maces vs HA? Of-course Pikeman is the most optimal ...
--

I say this on intuition (or bad memories, as you wish)
But thinking on it, this is a 8 vs 6 combat with no modifiers, hardly a guaranteed win. Add that my maces go City RaiderI->II, I understand why I loose to combat II HA.
Spears are as effective as maces vs mounted units (4+100%=8) and will upgrade to pikes when eng is available.

Rex Tyrannus · Apr 26, 2006

Sorry about Ning Hsai. Didn't realize the group consensus was to keep it. It's surrounded by jungle and little else. As I did it, I said to myself: "whatever, we can plop a settler on it if we want to keep it." Sorry Namlia.

Okay, I'll take Turfan in a few minutes.

Re Colossus, Fox. I'm sorry. I didn't realize it'd be obsolete so quickly. I just didn't think about it. Colossus is always a big priority for me if I have three or more coastal cities. I sort of went on autopilot with that one.

Re maces/HA/spears. A spear has a 100% modifier against mounted units, so his four is an 8. A mace is an 8 off the bat, so the difference is cost. 35 vs 70. I did, IIRC, build at least one spear. But anyway, I had to face down two HAs with two maces and lost one of them.

Latly, re didlomacy. I was almost 100% certain that the trade would have given us the -1 worst enemy with Louis. Anyone care to test this?

Anyhow, off to play before my daughter wakes up.

Rex Tyrannus · Apr 26, 2006

End of turn 6

Kahn is killed with no further casualties. However, Turfan is lightly garrisoned. At the first sign of trouble from JC, I might just have to accept his 70 gold peace offer.

I keep moving our southern troops up from Ning Hsai. It leaves our south exposed a little, but we have a few longbows and some troop builds about to complete. I'll let the next few players decide whether to take the fight to Rome.

IBT Nothing to report

Turn 7

Munich: Heroic Epic => Crossbow. Frankfurt: Market => Theater. I wasn't sure what to build here Lighthouse made sense, too. I was just about to say "screw it" and build a "safe" Longbow when I went with a theatre. That city can't work one of its BFC tiles thanks to Qin.

Popular year for GP. We get Alhazin (Sci) in Frankfurt. Copernicus and Francis Bacon BIAFAL. Alhazin can discover Philosophy for us. Qin already founded Taoism, so Phffbbt!

Hamburg's got the most beakers (27) so I'd probably build an academy there. However all choices are uninspiring. I'll leave him for the group.

Also, our next GP will come in about 18 turns in Hamburg. He'll be another scientist. If we want, we can turn off Hamburg's Scientist and Cologne will pop an engineer in 30. We could then have a Golden Age.

Either way, it's a group decision.

The rest of the turn is moving troops and workers around. I'm starting a chain farm to Beshbalik. If it's a science city, it'll need some food. Brain work is hungry work (not that I'd know).

Turn 8

I go to check out the diplo screen and Louis has dropped to cautious. The religion modifier is now -4 and we got a -1 "declared against friend" I thought that went away when the friend did...

At this point, is a state religion doing us any good?

IBT Asoka demands drama and leaves annoyed.

Berlin: Crossbow => Horse Archer (we have no 2-move dudes). Munich: Crossbow => Longbow. Karakorum: Spear => Spear.

Imhtep born about 6 thousand years too late in a distant land.

I've started moving a few newly-hatched troops east just in case.

Turn 9

Munich: Longbow => Mace. Munich's popping two units every three turns. Nice. Cologne: Colossus => Longbow. Turfan comes out of resistance and begins a theater. It's under heavy crunch. This city needs a designation, but I'll let it wait until after my turns. It has no buildings in it whatsoever.

Sistene Chapel BIADL

Caesar will still give us 100 G + 2/turn. He still won't give us compass. Does he realize we have about 25 units on his doorstep?

Hmmm? It's 1100 AD, but I'm on turn 9? I'm trying to figure out where I failed to record a turn transition. Oh well. 1100 is a good, round number.

Bede · Apr 26, 2006

For those of us still confused by the turn numbering in C-iv, just set the Autosave count in the .ini file to at least ten. That way you can do a "Load Save" and count the autosaves in the folder.

Nice piece of warfare there, rex!!

Rex Tyrannus · Apr 26, 2006

For those of us still confused by the turn numbering in C-iv, just set the Autosave count in the .ini file to at least ten. That way you can do a "Load Save" and count the autosaves in the folder.

Nice piece of warfare there, rex!!

Thanks for the complement, Bede. I must say, I'm baffled by the streaky RNG. I've taken to cheking "new random seed" (or whatever the name is) every new game. I don't know if it does any good, but CIV's RNG seems less than random.

Re: turns. CIV still crashes on me, so I keep autosave low. The counting mistake was just :smoke:

in my case. I'm still scratching my head.

GreyFox · Apr 26, 2006

Wow, Turfan is really squeezed ... I say we delay its designation until we can see what is in the BFC.

@rex: we can always delay astronomy, although that might not be a good idea in a continents map. Strange, I am starting to wonder if this is indeed a continents map ... we haven't even explored half of our continent and we have already met all Civs. :hmm:

Blid, you are UP!

Peon, you are on-deck!

--

Fox-03 -- Trying to be Special

Make it so ...

Make it so ...

Emperor

Deity

Emperor

280lbs of gross stupidity

Make it so ...

280lbs of gross stupidity

Deity

Make it so ...

Deity

Make it so ...

Emperor

Make it so ...

Emperor

280lbs of gross stupidity

280lbs of gross stupidity

Deity

280lbs of gross stupidity

Make it so ...

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