Gator02 - Learning to Walk

[DJMGator13]

It sounds to me like going for Paper is a good idea, as well as a few Theaters in our home core.

Is it better to switch to Caste and use Merchants to keep the Gold supply up or keep Slavery and use the extra pop to rush courthouses? Our maintenance costs are 49 GPT for city maintenance and 41 GPT for Civic upkeep.

EDIT - Is there anything we need to trade for? I would probably trade with Mursa but not so much with the others. Mursa has Stone for sale and we could trade wines for it. I can't think of any techs we need?

I think the home core will be cranking out units, the occasional theater might be needed. I was using Caste in my test game and I have plenty of gold but nothing to spend it on, since I can't cash rush. So it might be worth trying to poprush some courthouses. But I'm no expert.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

I think sticking with Slavery would be best for now too. The only other tech I think we might want would be Banking as Bez mentioned, but I wouldn't research it until we have a fair number of grenadiers fighting.

Having the Heroic Epic in our capitol will make things difficult for us: the only place we need a bank or a grocer is in the capitol, but in order to build them we would have to take the city off building our very cheap units.

 

[Bezhukov]

Is our shrine city the capitol? That's the place that could use the bank most, although once research is turned off, that changes the math altogether. Banking should be easily available via tech trade. I don't actually research it very often.

I think the Heroic Epic in the capital would usually follow from Brad's overall cashing in the future approach. In my games, the capitol tends toward the financial (Oxford, Wall Street, National Epic) over the military/industrial (Heroic, Iron Works, West Point, Red Cross) wonders, but in this one the financial wonders are moot, so if it cranks the most hammers, then putting the HE there would make sense.

That said, I'll often put the HE in a specialty city that's NOT one of my primaries, as such a city can be exclusively devoted to troops for the entirety of the game, while my primaries grow out and spend a good chunk of their time building infra to accomodate/exploit the higher pop.

Another thing I'll usually do is to put Wall Street and Oxford in different cities, so one can focus on science specialists (from SoL, overflow post-biology), producing research and the other merchants, building wealth. Often my Wall Street city will build wealth rather than troops/wonders/space parts to finance higher research rates.

 

[Bede]

EDIT - Is there anything we need to trade for? I would probably trade with Mursa but not so much with the others. Mursa has Stone for sale and we could trade wines for it. I can't think of any techs we need?

Gold would be nice to have if you can face the thought of giving up Marble once the Epic and Hagia Sophia are finished. Gold from Mao will produce two happy faces everywhere we have forges and having marble on hand may induce Mao to build buildings instead of troops.

 

[leif erikson]

We have 2 more Aztec cities and 16 Grenadiers. But we are suffering a lot of War Weariness.

The turn log:
Turn 170 – 1100 AD
Change research rate to 50%, Chemistry in 1 turn.
Change culture rate to 10%, down to 1 unhappy citizen in some cities.
MM Cuzco to slow rate of loss of food to 2 per turn.
MM Ollie to hold size at 12 pop, maximize Gold.
MM Cori to hold size, emphasize Gold.
Change Ollie from Mace to Catapult.
OK, looks good, press red button!

IBT
We discover Chemistry and start Banking at 0% research.

Turn 171 – 1110 AD
Move stack towards Tlaxcala.
The Maceman and Musket did not change to Grenadier?

IBT
The Hagia Sophia is completed, start a Grenadier.
Machu Knight, start a Grenadier.

Turn 172 – 1120 AD
Move stack across river next to Tlaxcala.
Upgrade a 13/17 Mace to Grenadier in Tlatelolco for 115 Gold.
Upgrade a 6/5 Mace to Grenadier in Texcoco for 115 Gold.
Mace kills an Aztec Chariot in the open just north of the Marble.

IBT
Ollie Cat, start another.
Cori Musket, start a Grenadier.
Huamanga Mace, start a Grenadier.

Turn 173 – 1130 AD
Cats bombard Tlaxcala, reduce city from 50% to 12%.
12/17 Mace attacks Aztec Archer at 99.1% odds and kills him, now 4.9/8.
12/17 Mace attacks Aztec Archer at 99.8% odds and kills him, now 6.1/8.
8/10 Mace attacks Aztec Chariot at 100% odds and kills him, no loss.
We capture Tlaxcala and get 133 Gold, set to build a Courthouse.
12/17 Mace attacks an Aztec Spear guarding a Gold Mine at 99.1% odds and kills him, now 5.8/8.
7/10 Mace attacks a 3.5/5 Jaguar at 100% odds and kills him without loss.
Move some units onto a hill SSE of Tlaxcala and we can see Tenochtilan, their capital guarded by 4 units, 2 Archers, one Spear and one Jaguar.

IBT
An Aztec Galley attacks our Caravel and sinks, we’re left at 2.3/3.
Aztecs move a Jaguar and a Spear up to Tlacala.

Turn 174 – 1140 AD
Upgrade 3 Maces to Grenadiers in Texcoco for 115 Gold each.
8/10 Mace attacks Aztec Spear at 95.8% odds and kills him, now 5.6/8.
9/10 Mace attacks Aztec Jaguar at 99.5% odds and kills him, no damage.
Use ship chain to cross a Knight and a Musket.
Pop rush a Courthouse (88/120) for 2 pop points (now 148/120) in Tlatelolco.
Change culture slider to 20% as we have Cuzco and Cori starving.
We offer an extra wine to the Malinese and they offer us 5 GPT, we accept.

IBT
Ollie Cat, start another.
Tlatelolco Courthouse, start Catapult.

Turn 175 – 1150 AD
14/17 Mace attacks an Aztec Axe at 95.6% odds and kills him, now 3.2/8.
Promote Mace to City Raider 3 and move towards Tenochtitlan.
Promote Mace to City Raider2, attack Jaguar in the open at 99.5% odds and kill him, now at 9.5/8.

IBT
Machu Grenadier, start another.
Tlatelolco Cat, start another.

Turn 176 – 1160 AD
Battle for Tenochtitlan.
Bombard the city with 3 Cat, from 60% to 15%.
10/17 Mace attacks Aztec Longbow at 95.1% odds and kills him, now 5.6/8.
10/17 Mace attacks Aztec Archer at 99.1% odds and kills him, now 3.8/8.
8/10 Mace attacks Aztec Chariot at 100% odds and kills him, now 6.1/8.
7/10 Mace attacks Aztec Spear at 100% odds and kills him, now 7/8.
We capture Tenochtitlan and 130 Gold, start a Courthouse.
Upgrade a Caravel to Frigate near Texcoco for 155 Gold.

IBT
Cuzco Knight, start a Catapult.
Tiwanaku Grenadier, start another.
Ollie Cat, start another.
Cori Grenadier, start another.

Turn 177 – 1170 AD
Ship chain across a Grenadier, Catapult and Knight.
A 6/2 Musket attacks an Aztec Chariot at 99.5% odds and kills him, no loss. Promote to Combat 2.
Move all the Maces and Cats into Tenochtitlan and set to heal.

IBT
Aztecs counterattack Tenochtitlan with 2 Chariots and 3 Axes, all die without loss.
Monty drops off a Chariot and an Axe near Texcoco.
Huamanga Grenadier, start another.

Turn 178 – 1180 AD
Upgrade a Mace in Tlaxcala to Grenadier for 115 Gold.
Promote Knight to Combat 1, attack Axeman near Texcoco at 98.7% odds and kill him, now 8.6/10. Promote to Combat 2, now 9.3/10.
Mace attacks Chariot near Texcoco at 99.1% odds and kills him, now 6.9/8.
Sink a Galley with our Frigate.
Promote 2 Maces in Tenochtitlan to City Raider 3and upgrade to Grenadier for 115 Gold.
Move 3 Grenadiers near Teotihuacan.

IBT
Cuzco Cat, start another.

Turn 179 – 1190 AD
Promote 2 Maces to Grenadiers in Tenochtitlan.
Chop completes to rush Courthouse in Texcoco next turn.

IBT
Ollie Cat, start another.
Texcoco Courthouse, start a Catapult.

Turn 180 – 1200 AD
Upgrade 2 Maces to Grenadiers in Texcoco for 115 Gold each.


After Action Report
War weariness is getting pretty severe. We are at 20% on the culture slider and still have 2 angry citizens in most cities, 3 in Cuzco. I have only built units, no theaters thus far.

We captured 2 cities, Tlaxcala and Tenochtitlan, the capital. Monty has Longbows now but we have Grenadiers. I built a number of Catapults but they are slow to get into position, so most are still moving. We are building some in old Aztec cities.

Many units have not been promoted as it hasn’t been necessary and it helps to heal them to promote after combat. However, I think you may need to promote them before attacking Teotihuacan.

 

[Bede]

All restored and ready to run.

Take it late tomorrow if that works out.

Looks like some theatres might be in order.

 

[Bezhukov]

Theaters, which are dirt cheap even for non-creative civs, give +1 happy for dyes and +1 happy per 10% culture (in effect, doubling the culture slider. Creative civs also get cheap colosseums, which give +1 happy for every 20% culture, in addition to the +1 free, so creative civs can easily get a 2.5 times more powerful lux slider than civIII - all this easy happiness places a premium on health, but also suggests that strategies that can exploit lots of pop are especially strong in CivIV).

 

[bradleyfeanor]

If we trade Mao copper for silver it will help us out a ton with the WW problems. I wouldn't trade for gold because we will have our own once Tlaxcala's borders expand. Speaking of borders in captured cities, I don't think I have been very successful in explaining what we should be doing in captured cities:

When we capture a city that needs to expand its borders in order to work good food tiles and not starve, we should put culture in the build queue before a courthouse. That will enable most captured cities to expand borders in one or two turns. Since we have allowed the cities we have captured to starve, they are now a big drain on our economy.

Now that we have most of our mace's ungraded, it would probably be a good time to grab paper. I notice that most of our cities are building grenadiers--which is fine--but we will want to drop in a couple of macemen once in a while so that they can be given City Raider II promotions and then upgraded to Grenadiers.

Since the Aztecs only have 4 cities left, we might want to think about shuttling a few of our boats to our west coast soon. It might not be a bad idea to build a few other galleons too: with the way Nappy's cities are lined up along the coast, it will probably be worthwhile to have 3 boats jumping our troops from city to city.

Our continents is looking pretty good as far as development goes. Maybe we should send a couple of workers over to aztec land so they can start chopping forests. I'm not sure what happened to those oodles of workers Monty had: either they got disbanded or they are holed up in the city furthest from us.

 

[leif erikson]

When we capture a city that needs to expand its borders in order to work good food tiles and not starve, we should put culture in the build queue before a courthouse. That will enable most captured cities to expand borders in one or two turns. Since we have allowed the cities we have captured to starve, they are now a big drain on our economy.

Good point, wish I had thought of it?

Now that we have most of our mace's ungraded, it would probably be a good time to grab paper. I notice that most of our cities are building grenadiers--which is fine--but we will want to drop in a couple of macemen once in a while so that they can be given City Raider II promotions and then upgraded to Grenadiers.

I tried to get most of the fighting Maces a City Raider promo before upgrading them to Grenadier as I noticed Grens don't get City Raider promos? There are still some Maces near their next promo that I didn't upgrade so that we could get them another CR promo if we want before upgrade.

Since the Aztecs only have 4 cities left, we might want to think about shuttling a few of our boats to our west coast soon. It might not be a bad idea to build a few other galleons too: with the way Nappy's cities are lined up along the coast, it will probably be worthwhile to have 3 boats jumping our troops from city to city.

I don't think we lost any units during the turn set. What we have in Azteca is probably sufficient, except maybe for Cats (which we are now building in former Azteca cities), to finish of the Aztecs. I was thinking we could build a force and prepare it to open a second front on Nappy. Your idea of using a small fleet of Galleons for mobility along Nappy's shoreline.

Paris has a convienent forest 1 tile south of Paris, on the ocean, for landing such a force, if we wish to do so. We'll need Cats for sure as it is on a hill, but taking his capital first would sure put him in a hurt, imho. That would also place the Azteca force on one side and the second force on the other.

 

[DJMGator13]

When we capture a city that needs to expand its borders in order to work good food tiles and not starve, we should put culture in the build queue before a courthouse. That will enable most captured cities to expand borders in one or two turns. Since we have allowed the cities we have captured to starve, they are now a big drain on our economy.

But doesn't it have to emerge from resistance first, before the culture will start building?

EDIT: In my game I continued to build maces, promotoed them with CRs and then upgraded them. I had shut off research completely and was running the culture slider around 20%.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

lurker's comment: think y'all need a screenie. hint. hint

 

[leif erikson]

lurker's comment: think y'all need a screenie. hint. hint

What would you like a screenie of? Paris area, city screen, both? I'd be glad to help if I knew what?

EDIT - BTW, nice engineer castle. Used to wear one, and you?

 

[Bede]

Turn 180 (1200 AD)
First thing I do is hit the culture button in all the Aztec cities no longer rioting. Then reset the sliders to hasten research towards Paper and get rid of any unhappiness until theatres can be built. I see no reason to be saving money right now as all the low hanging fruit upgrades are done.

Research begun: Paper for maps for maps
Cuzco begins: Theatre
Ollantaytambo begins: Catapult
Chuang-Tzu (Great Prophet) born in Tiwanaku. Whatever will we do with him? I thought of shipping him to Delhi but Monte has built the Hindu shrine already. Nonetheless he is currently aboard a galleon catching tuna.
Tlatelolco finishes: Catapult
Texcoco's borders expand

Turn 181 (1210 AD)
Tlatelolco begins: Barracks
Tiwanaku finishes: Grenadier
Ollantaytambo finishes: Catapult
Huamanga's borders expand
Tlaxcala's borders expand and a courthouse is started.

Turn 182 (1220 AD)
Tiwanaku begins: Grenadier
Ollantaytambo begins: Grenadier
Tech learned: Paper
Cuzco finishes: Theatre
Machu Picchu finishes: Grenadier
Huamanga finishes: Grenadier
Tlatelolco grows: 5

Getting to Teo is going to be problem as Monte still has some troops wandering about.
Grenadier defeats (10.56/12): Aztec Axeman

Turn 183 (1230 AD)
Texcoco begins: Barracks

Clearing the way to Teotihuacan
Knight loses to: Aztec Axeman (3.70/5)
Grenadier defeats (6.96/12): Aztec Longbowman

Research begun: Banking at zero budget

Huamanga begins: Theatre
Machu Picchu begins: Theatre
Knight defeats (8.50/10): Aztec Axeman
Cuzco finishes: Catapult
Corihuayrachina finishes: Galleon
Tlatelolco finishes: Barracks
Tenochtitlan's borders expand

Maceman loses to: Aztec Axeman (1.70/5) on the road into Teotihuacan while the cats bomb the city defenses.

Turn 184 (1240 AD)
First assault wave at Teotihuacan
Catapult loses to: Aztec Longbowman (2.64/6)
Catapult loses to: Aztec Longbowman (5.16/6)
Grenadier defeats (8.40/12): Aztec Longbowman
Grenadier defeats (10.20/12): Aztec Longbowman
Grenadier defeats (8.64/12): Aztec Longbowman
Grenadier defeats (12.00/12): Aztec Longbowman
Grenadier defeats (10.20/12): Aztec Longbowman
Catapult defeats (3.10/5): Aztec Spearman
Huamanga finishes: Theatre

Turn 185 (1250 AD)
Second assault wave finishes the job.

Catapult defeats (5.00/5): Aztec Axeman
Catapult defeats (2.00/5): Aztec Spearman
Knight defeats (9.00/10): Aztec Chariot
Grenadier defeats (10.80/12): Aztec Axeman
Captured Teotihuacan (Montezuma)


Corihuayrachina begins: Theatre
Huamanga begins: Catapult
Huamanga begins: Grenadier
Tiwanaku begins: Theatre

Turn 185 (1250 AD)
Swapped World Maps with China straight up and learned the shape of the world. The only Indian city name on the map is now the Aztec capitol, far to the south of Teotihuacan, while there are lots of American city names on the map there are no American towns, the American towns are all French. There are three Aztec towns remaining, one in the far north and one in between Teo and Delhi, the new Aztec capitol.



Machu Picchu finishes: Theatre
Tlatelolco grows: 6

Turn 186 (1260 AD)
Frigate defeats (8.00/8): Aztec Galley
Machu Picchu begins: Maceman
Tlatelolco begins: Forge
Cuzco finishes: Grenadier
Texcoco finishes: Barracks

Turn 187 (1270 AD)
Frigate defeats (8.00/8): Aztec Galley
Cuzco begins: Maceman
Texcoco begins: Catapult

Battle of Calix does not go as well as it should as the troops lack seige weapon support. Lose a grenadier but kill all the defenders but a catapult. When I committed the forces south towards Delhi I did not appreciate the cultural defenses of the city

Grenadier loses to: Aztec Longbowman (2.22/6)
Maceman defeats (6.08/8): Aztec Longbowman
Grenadier defeats (8.88/12): Aztec Jaguar
Grenadier defeats (1.92/12): Aztec Spearman
Ollantaytambo begins: Theatre
Tiwanaku finishes: Theatre
Corihuayrachina finishes: Theatre

Turn 188 (1280 AD)



Xochicalco should fall relatively easily. No cultural defense, just two longbows, and,
It does not sit on a hill!!!
Grenadier defeats (4.80/12): Aztec Longbowman
Grenadier defeats (6.96/12): Aztec Longbowman
Hinduism has spread: Xochicalco
Captured Xochicalco (Montezuma)
Burn Baby Burn. It is too close to Bonaparte's Boston to make worth keeping.

The fall of Calix led by CR3 mace.
Maceman defeats (7.04/8): Aztec Chariot
Grenadier defeats (7.68/12): Aztec Catapult
Captured Calixtlahuaca (Montezuma)
Calixtlahuaca begins: Courthouse
Tiwanaku finishes: Grenadier
Machu Picchu grows: 12
Corihuayrachina finishes: Grenadier

Turn 189 (1290 AD)
Teotihuacan begins: Courthouse
Tiwanaku begins: Maceman
Corihuayrachina begins: Maceman

Cuzco finishes: Maceman
Huamanga grows: 11
Huamanga finishes: Grenadier
Tlaxcala finishes: Courthouse
Tenochtitlan finishes: Courthouse

Grin and bear it Monte



We are marching on Delhi. The March on Delhi and the Aztec counter thrust through France.



Turn 190 (1300 AD)
Cuzco begins: Maceman
Huamanga begins: Pikeman
Tlaxcala begins: Forge
Tenochtitlan begins: Forge
Monte's counter force has taken refuge in Boston

Delhi should fall like autumn leaves now the besiegers are in position. One quarter of the garrison is currently cowering in Boston, but may appear in the old homeland soon.

Domestic situation is stable, though it still takes 20% culture to keep all the new citizens happy. Perhaps a touch of the whip and some religious buildings would help.

Most of the home workforce is now over in Aztec land chopping out courthouses. Had the Prophet been an Engineer Versailles is still on offer if we buy Divine Right from Mansa. There is not an overabundance of trees in the Aztec plains, and the south is lots of jungle so chopping up the FP is a problem.

The ship chain is broken up and is moving to the west coast for their next adventure. There are frigates where caravels used to be and they can join the fleet on the next assault as they are handy for reducing coastal defenses.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

Nice turns Bede, and I'm glad you got your 'pewter sorted. We had gold appear on a hill in Cuzco's radius: the rich get richer!

We had a bit of bad luck on the priest. I see four possible uses for him: 1) Great Priest in the capitol (+2hammers, +5gold), which would be quite nice considering all the production/commerce buildings Cuzco has. 2) If we could trade for Divine Right and Philosophy, we could use the priest for Printing Press. That would add up to a good amount of gold (around 25gpt), but I'm not sure we can get the AIs to trade us Philosophy until the Ankgor Wat is built. 3) Use him for the Temple of Solomon once we take New York from Nappy. Considering that Judaism has spread very well on the big continent, that would be worth quite a bit of dough too (15gpt). 4) Save him for a GA.

What do you guys think?

I see what you mean about the lack of trees to chop for the FP, Bede. The only cities that have lots of trees are on the coast up north: a poor location for the FP. I think it might be best to just let Tenoch build the FP by hand: since it has a granary, we can probably get the FP built in around 10-12 turns, and the city has a nice, central location.

I like Leif's plan of hitting Nappy's capitol as our first target in the French war. We can kick the war off by taking Paris with the new force we are building on our home continent, and we can have our troops finishing up the Aztec war simultaneously take Boston and Chicago. That would make it much more difficult for Nappy to harass our back-line cities.

The French war will probably have to be kicked off by the next player though, because it looks like we will need a few more boats and a few cats built on the home continent. I will use my turns to finish off the Aztecs and prepare for the French invasion--unless you guys think it might be to our advantage to hit Mao before Nappy.

 

[Bezhukov]

The Palace was Forbidden to keep the slaves from questioning their masters...

Hint, hint.

 

[leif erikson]

Yes, nice work Bede!

As feedback, should I have built Theaters? I was trying to push out enough of an army to begin on Nappy as soon as we could, while finishing Monty.

Regarding our priest, I like the Printing Press idea the most, if we could pull it off. We can't get Philosophy until we get Meditation, which requires 1 turn of research and Philosophy would be 6, if we can't trade. The second option for me would be to build the Temple of Solomon.

Regarding our next target, Mao is technologically ahead of Nappy, but is behind him in every other category except culture. Interesting that they both have 11 cities. I think Nappy's cities are in the best terrain for growth and development, so I think Nappy would be the best first target. We can expand our forces and get some promotions before heading on over to Mao.

 

[leif erikson]

The Palace was Forbidden to keep the slaves from questioning their masters...

Hint, hint.

 

[Bezhukov]

GA's are very lucrative at this late stage. Perhaps you could arrange a GP farm in the former Azteca?

 

[DJMGator13]

Going after the French next also allows us a shorter transport passage. I'd also try to bring in Mao against him. Let them waste some troops with their shared border, while we concentrate on Paris.

@Brad - No problems on my end if you spend your turn setting me up Gator gets to

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

lurker's comment:
@ bede - thanks for the pix
@ lief - 12 bravo all the way