grs1 - the roman legions

[Vizurok]

Thank you the positive critics...
I was hurrying to another exam, so I had to write quickly, and I forgot to write thing, for example my plans with the Leader, or giving the Glorious title to the victorious unit
Happiness wasn't problem 'til getting dyes, cause I set lux on 0%... we can always use 10%.
Prebuild: good idea, i couldn't do anything with Rome, it was only a 2-turn legion factory.
There is a large stack of workers south of, Beijing, thery are slaves, so they can be the citizens of Beijing. I vote on Beijing in the FP race.
On the other continent everything is running very well, they are destroying each other... Greece doesn't have roads! (almost)

Good luck for the next player!

 

[grs]

Pre-Turn: research to 90% - astronomy in 6 at -16gpt; switch Boston to worker to free Sistine Chapel for pre-build in Rome; Rome to Sistine Chapel; Moscow to courthouse; Beijing to forbidden palace and use Trajan to hurry it; Kiew to courthouse and fire a taxmen there; Shanghai and Tsingtao to harbor, switch Londinium to worker; Byzantium and Tientsin to barracks; Miami to worker; Nicopolis and Nicomedia to settler, wake some worker slaves in Tokyo and the lonely elite warrior and move him on the galley, do some palace building, we get peace from Joan and her into the alliance vs the Ottomans

IBT: Ottomans and Arabs sign peace, Arabs declare, Beijing forbidden palace-barracks, Boston worker-warrior, Miami worker-warrior

460AD: I really love to mm 100 workers...hurry harbor in Shanghai, barracks in Bejing, temple in Tokyo, research to 100%-astronomy in 4, overall happiness is up (thank you arabs) which frees some military police and specialists

IBT: Greece and Ottos sign peace, Bejin barracks-legion, all resistance in Shanghai ends, Tokyo temple-barracks, Antium legion-legion, Lungdum library-legion, Tsingtao harbor-galley, Pisae legion-legion, Hispalis legion-legion

470AD: Alexander gives world map for alliance vs. Ottos, yes great diplomacy Alex; Nanking: elite kills spear, vet redlines spear, elite kills spear, takes Nanking, 20 gold, destroys chinese, city starts harbor, we hurry harbor in Shanghai, the continent is ours, we are up education on all, Cleo has engineering, but we dont want to trade techs and cant pay; moving all troops to coast, preferably to Nanking

IBT: barbs appear and kill a worker, Shanghai harbor-barracks, Veii settler-legion, Edo worker-settler, Smolensk galley-galley, Neapolis legion-galley, Pompeii Library-legion, Brundisium temple-legion, Caesarea worker-barracks, piece of palace

480AD: warrior kills barb horse, hurry some warriors and a harbor in Nanking, research to 90%, Astronomy in 2

IBT: Osmans wants peace - nope, Entremont legion-legion, Satsuma, Boston, Miami warrior-warrior, Nanking harbor-barracks, piece of palace

490AD: research to 80% Astronomy in 1, kill 2 barbs and produce 1 elite, barbs destroy iron colony

IBT: Astronomy-Navigation, wltk day in Tokyo, Xinjian settler-barracks, Hispalis, Lutetia, Antium legion-legion

500AD: disperse barb camp and get elite, starting to upgrade galleys, we are short on cash, research to 70%, Navigation in 8 at +49 gpt

IBT: Kiew courthouse-legion, Ravenna aqueduct-legion, Syracuse courthouse harbor, lots of legion-legion

510AD: movement

IBT: barbs kill worker, Moscow courthouse-legion

520AD: kill barb use warriors to remove shadowed regions

IBT: Entremont, Kyoto, Antium, Lugdunum, Brundisium, Hispalis legion-legion, Shanghai barracks-legion, Nicomedia settler-worker

530AD: Eburacum founded, research to 80% navigation in 4

IBT: Beijing, Kiew, Veii, Pompeiji, Pisae, Lutetia, Palmyra legion-legion, Jerusalem temple-barracks, Cumae market-legion, Neapolis caravel-legion, Tietsin barracks-legion

540AD: moooooove

IBT: Cleo wants to renew peace, we do; a gpt deal runs out - we lose a worker, Byzantium, Shantung barracks-legion

550AD: sci to 70% navigation still in 2, Arretium founded, disperse a barb camp

Military consists of: 73 legions, 24 warriors, 14 caravels and 4 galleys, most ships ready tp cross and I already put a stack of 7 loaded caravels 2 fields north of Nanking, which holds some galleys for upgrade and some more legions to transport. 2 Caravels are in the west of our island and we should seek Isabella with them, we are building a third to explore in Smolensk and I think this should be our last ship for the whole game; from now on it's barracks and legions. Rome has a prebuild for Magellans - I thought Copernicus to be not worth that much for us. The seemingly planless roaking warriors in former American territory are used to remove fog to avoid more barb raids.

I know this was much text for not many events, but as I had to play it, you will have to read it . This 10 turns probably was all the boring part of the game - I had much fun up to now and I hope you had too - the really good part will start soon. Good luck conquering the other isle and finding Isabella.

 

[grs]

The roster:

Vizurok
grs - just played
Bede - up next
conehead234 - hopefully back on deck this round
Barbslinger

 

[Vizurok]

Good and useful and quick (after me) turns...
At arms!!!

 

[barbslinger]

Love the turns. I saw that the would be boring moving a lot of workers and troops. It is done. My idea for copernicus was more for dnial to keep the research pace as slow as possible. I think with nav coming in we should set up an assault for on our W coast in Syacuse. As soon as nav comes in we should go single science and then we can rush cravels in our west too. Legions running to the east coast takes too long and we can quickly assemble a force of caravels and legions in Syacuse to go after Arabs in the south.
The 27-30 legions in the east in caravels can get an ROP with Greece and march, like legions do, to the front. Go after Adana, Uskadar for silks and then Edrine. I would burn everything that is not a lux. Once we take out otto we can turn around for Greece and put the squeeze on him with newly arrived troops.

 

[conehead234]

Time for some warring. Save some for me. Good job.

 

[Bede]

Nice set up.

Now to make some good use of those indomitable legions.

Got it. Will try to play tonight.

Anybody have any ideas to add to 'slinger's pithy comments?

 

[barbslinger]

Good luck Bede! On reflection here at work I'm thinking that a frontal assault with 30-40 legions may not cut the mustard. They may have knights and pikes. It may be better to ID Ottos iron and horses and upon landing in Greece split the forces to eliminate those. Our 3.3's will have a hard time cracking the nut against knight 4's and pike 3's. We may even have to extort our way to gunpowder if the AI shows up with that.
Regardless, let's get a load of boys over there, keeping Greece on our side so we can always return to a safe area. From Greece we can attack 3 different AI's and save him for last.

 

[Bede]

Playing now. Expect dispatches tonight.

 

[Bede]

550AD
Strap on the short sword and order a visit to the realm. Rome is high food right now and there is a mountian that could use a mine and a road. Wake up a worker horde to get over there. Lutetia is overgrown. I founded it only to get the cows in play and it will never get to 10spt so switch it to a worker. I'm going to skim it down to around pop6 then try to set it up for combat worker/settler duty. With six employed citizens it is at 5spt and 18fpt so I think it will work.between pop5 and pop7 very nicely. THere is a mountain being worked at Veii which has no improvements. That will the next target for the worker horde. Caesaraugusta us building an acqueduct and will have a hard time maintaining the population it has now. If I mine a grassland and a tundra and let it drop to pop5 it will do nicely as a five or six turn legion producer. Switch the acqueduct to legion, burning forty shields...The game reserves at Virconium need trees, so we need engineering for that. Turns out Cleo will empty her treasury 104g and 5gpt and throw in Engineering for Education...so now the question becomes.. .do we give her a leg up to Astronomy. Decide that since we have 19 turns to go in a peace deal and an alliance against the Ottomans up for renewal, add the alliance and she raises her offer to 104g+12gpt...go check with the other guys...who aren't even worth talking to so Cleo get Education and we get her gold

This leads to a digression where I explore the maps of the Ottoman Empire and do a little espionage which uncovers that Osman has no iron (no knights) and his horses are on the far side of the continent.

Kiev is at very high food and overproducing shields to get to net 10spt so I pull some citizens to tax collection. Moscow is also high food, and gets a couple tax men to squeeze two more gpt. Pisae needs some grasslands irrigated and two forests cut to get its food/shield balance right. Pompeii also needs some irrigation to get a proper food set-up. cumae could use some forests on its furs for added shields and at least one grassland irrigated to balance its food supply. There are workers at Hispalis running mines which are not needed for its 10spt. There are workers digging mines at Kiev which will not be used for a long time. Add them to the gang at Hispalis.

Spend all the gold getting settlers or workers out of the corrupt American villes
Hurrying a few workers in the jungle cities of old America and in the small Japanses and chinese town surrounding Beijing as we need to get that ground productive soonest, After all that fiddling around ....

T1 560
Legions east head toward Shanghai
Legions west head towards Syracuse
Workers work
Found Gordion in NW
Settler from Washington trekking to the coast
Warriors in NW on barb hunting duty
Upgrade a couple of galleys and load legions at Nanking.
Task force heads across the strait and meets a barb galley Urfa on the coast will make a nice beachhead town, 3 leagues from Shanghai or Nanking

Navigation comes in and start banking with scientist in Kiev.
Rome can't build Magellan's....it's not on the coast, so it switches to Copernicus due in 5

T2 570
Land legions at Urfa.
Caravel sails westward from Syracuse into fog, It is loaded with two legions. There is another caravel waiting troops for pickup there.
Take a whole bunch 114g plus 18gpt from Cleo for a nice selection of furs, dyes and ivory.
The Greeks and the French have no harbors,,,
Get Joan to join the fight against the Arabs for a look at our WM
Cleo joins in for 8gpt.
Alex joins in against the Arabs for another look at our World Map.
Start min science on Banking.
Whack a barb camp in the NW.

T3 580
Treking settlers and whacking barb galleys. Chopping jungle and building roads.
Elite legion attacks at Urfa and dies to spear. Vet legion dies to second spear,
Second elite kills spear. Third elite kills last spear and we have our beach head

Arabs come calling and offer nothing.
Greeks want to swap maps. Nope.

T4 590
Kill a barb horseman and pillage a barb camp in the NW
Rush a harbor in Urfa
Legions move out to the front
Greeks build Sistines

T5 600
Sign RoP with Greece
Found Agrippina on NW coast, short rush harbor


T6 610
Shuttling troops, trekking settlers.
Egpyt and Ottomans sign a Peace Treaty.

We build Copernicus in Rome

T7 620
Shuttling and trekking
Found Cyrene in N

Spend 40gpt with Cleo for WInes as Beijing is on the verge of rioting and lux tax will cost 47gpt

T8 630
Found Tyrus on the Inland Sea
Found Verona in the ivory plains
Whack a barb camp

T9 640
Looking to the north for the Spanish
Caravels have found the western side of the other continent
Trekking and trooping across Greece

T10 650
Found Mediolanum on shores of inland sea
Found Trevari in NW
Finally encounter Osman's troops in Greece, archers and horsemen. Urfa was defended only by spears, HE HAS NO IRON!!!!

WE have over 100 legions either in the field or waiting for transport. I have stil been building caravels for the Arab force which is heading west. One caravel is hunting the north for some sign of Spain. Since we still have a monopoly on Astronoomy and Navigation start MAgellan's in a coastal city. It is due in 38 or 39 turns. Should we be so lucky and pull an MGL in the battles against Osman youcan hot foot him to a Chinese town and rush Magellan's there.

We need to develop our economy. Courthouses and marketplaces are nice. i tried to gang the workers so moving them around is not so time-consuming. The eastern core needs a lot of improvement in its terrain. The plan for imoprovments that I laid out in the beginning is nowhere near complete. The mone at ROme is done, the furs in the tundra have been forested and most of the towns in the western core are capable of 3 turn legions at a perfect 10spt.

At some point we may want to turn up the heat on the Busnen burners in the lab. We have Copernicus after all and can probably snag Newton's as well.

Diplomatically I've tried to keep the other continent at war with each other. Cleo is being a little tough and I had to pay her a lot o dough to get her into a war with the Arabs.Now if only Joan and Alex would build some harbors then we would have some more trade bait to keep those guys at war.

I've shipped some workers over to the other side to build roads behind our advance. They could use some help, so as soon as the improvements ns aroudn Beijing are done ship that crew out to Urfa.

I haven't ben real tidy about city placement, basically dropping towns where the settler lands in three or four moves form the nearest burgs. With over 200 units running around, every little town helps with the unit support.

Looks like cone gets to be the first to the Ottomans!

 

[grs]

Wow, some excellent micromanaging; you corrected a lot I have overlooked!

Decide that since we have 19 turns to go in a peace deal and an alliance against the Ottomans up for renewal, add the alliance and she raises her offer to 104g+12gpt...go check with the other guys...who aren't even worth talking to so Cleo get Education and we get her gold

I find it a bit risky to trade techs, I really would prefer to let the AI research all by themselves to keep their tech pace slow. It would be nice if we could keep them from leaving the isle.

Navigation comes in and start banking with scientist in Kiev.
Rome can't build Magellan's....it's not on the coast, so it switches to Copernicus due in 5

...ups...such a shame Shows how seldom I go for naval wonders...

 

[Bede]

I find it a bit risky to trade techs, I really would prefer to let the AI research all by themselves to keep their tech pace slow. It would be nice if we could keep them from leaving the isle.

That was something I pondered on for a bit, then decided it was worth the risk for a couple of reasons:
1) With that one tech we could get real improvements in a couple of first ring towns that would add to our legion building capability.
2) The other nations are at war and we can keep them that way so they are not spending on science, they are spending on military. And when the legions go to work on them the race will become a crawl.
3) We emptied her treasury with that deal and then again when the trade route opened. If we keep doing that again and again we will continue to control the tech pace.
4) It looks like the AI is running the lower branches of the tree because of all the warfare so I think it unlikely Cleo will do the Astronomy-Navigation route anyway.


I've found that the tech trades that speed the pace are the two-fers and three-fers where you add to the other nations' economy and trade techs even though you may get cash and payments in the back-end deals. In another game where the tech pace was killing us a couple of deals with the richest that emptied their treasuries and some resource deals that kept them poor (stuff we didn't need) killed the advances that had been coming at two or three per round. Every time we two-fered and three-fered and paid them gpt the pace went back up to its killing rate. It also helped that the other guys went into warmongering mode, too.

As for Magellan's , when the tech came in and I couldn't build the building it took me the longest time to figger out why...I thought the game was broke...so you're not alone.

I want to add my thanks for setting this one up. It is proving to be a lot of fun.

 

[conehead234]

Um. Where is the save. I cannot see it.

 

[barbslinger]

Its not in uploads 7 either that I can see.

 

[Bede]

That's what I get for posting at midnight after working 12 hours...forgot to attach the save.

 

[conehead234]

Ok I got it.

 

[conehead234]

I will have the turns by tonight.

 

[grs]

Any update conehead?

 

[conehead234]

I will have the turns by tonight. I been busy, So far I razed 2 ottoman cities and found Spain.

 

[conehead234]

I am sorry for the delay. I finished my turns and will have the log ready after I get home from school.