HAM-01: The Hanseatic League

[GreyFox]

Things are going pretty well ... as for military, I would throw in one or two crossbows (or pikes, if engineering is available, since GK is the most possible agressor).

Got it, expect a report when you wake up ... (at least for Cosmic and Hamtastic, who knows where soooo and Baru dwell) or after you had your afternoon tea (for Pigswill).

--

 

[GreyFox]

I played later than I thought ... and geez, we are in barb trouble!

But before that, there is almost always a better configuration than to turn on avoid growth in most situations:

This is the city of Danzig before tweak:



This is the city after tweak:



we got one extra scientist GPP and still maintain zero growth. QED

But then, I forgot to let the city grow back after the oppression penalty faded away


Now, the barbs. I pulled back the other axe, and have the injured axe run. Managed to have the injured axe meet up with the pulled-back axe, and the barb sword suicides into our pulled back axe.

Meanwhile, a horse arhcer also appeared, which I dealt with witha spear.
There are more barbs appearing, all dealt with with some luck.

Meanwhile, our "friendly neighbors come asking for help, which I rejected.





We have a revolt, unfortunately, its our newest city.



We also have a great engineer (of all odds ) ... let the next player decides what to do.



>>> The Save <<<

Spoiler autolog :

Turn 182 (1220 AD)
Bruges grows: 4

IBT:

Turn 183 (1230 AD)
Visby grows: 5
Zwolle grows: 2

IBT:

Turn 184 (1240 AD)
Danzig finishes: Maceman
Visby finishes: Barracks

IBT:
While defending, Longbowman defeats (6.00/6): Barbarian Swordsman at 100.0 percent.

Turn 185 (1250 AD)
Danzig begins: Spearman
Visby begins: Spearman
Axeman promoted: Combat I
Danzig's borders expand
Rostock finishes: Barracks
Bruges grows: 5

IBT:
While defending, Spearman defeats (1.28/4): Barbarian Horse Archer at 78.3 percent.
While defending, Axeman defeats (2.45/5): Barbarian Swordsman at 78.3 percent.

Turn 186 (1260 AD)
Rostock begins: Spearman
Danzig finishes: Spearman
Zwolle finishes: Granary

IBT:

Turn 187 (1270 AD)
Danzig begins: Jewish Monastery
Zwolle begins: Theatre
Lubeck grows: 7
Visby grows: 6
Visby finishes: Spearman
Bruges grows: 6

IBT:

Turn 188 (1280 AD)
Visby begins: Harbor
Visby begins: Spearman
Lubeck finishes: Library
Rostock finishes: Spearman

IBT:

Turn 189 (1290 AD)
Lubeck begins: Settler
Rostock begins: Library
Spearman promoted: Combat I
While attacking, Spearman defeats (2.72/4): Barbarian Horse Archer at 89.3 percent.
Bi Sheng (Engineer) (Great Engineer) born in Lubeck

IBT:

Turn 190 (1300 AD)
Visby finishes: Spearman
Judaism has spread: Rostock
Bruges finishes: Forge

IBT:

Turn 191 (1310 AD)
Visby begins: Library
Bruges begins: Library
Danzig finishes: Jewish Monastery
Zwolle finishes: Theatre

IBT:

Turn 192 (1320 AD)
Danzig begins: Jewish Temple
Zwolle begins: Forge

 

[Baru]

Got it and will try and play tonight, tomorrow morning at the latest.
Are we in agreement to settle the merchant in Bruges?

 

[GreyFox]

What merchant? It's a great engineer.

Let's see what BiSheng would learn us. If it is anything useful, then perhaps lightbulbing is good. Else suggest mergining him to the capital.

Now, if we indeed have a great merchant, why Brunges? The settling of the first merchant in Lubeck may have already set something in motion ... the ideal place to settle the great merchant is (a) where your gold city is, or (b) where you GP-Farm is.

For (a) where your gold city is, it means where we would build our wall street, to maximize the benefit of the great merchant. I don't see why Brunges would fall into this category. Lubeck is the more ideal choice, with the holy city (if we going to get a shrine), and already one merchant settled.

For (b) where the GP-Farm is, the idea is for the GMerchant to supply the city with even more food. Not the most optimal use of the superspeciaist, I agree., but that's one reason. As to where is our GP-Farm, Brunges mightbe one, but I think Visby is the better choice with the flood plains.

 

[Baru]

Sorry about that I was speed reading at the end of my lunch at work and got interupted right beofore I posted, obviously had GM on the mind and it stuck.

As for the GP-farm. I would rather Farm all that is available in Bruges. Even with a light house I believe (just a quick base food calculation and most likely off)
Bruges with farms = 56
Visby with lighthouse and farms = 45/46
Bruges wouldn't ever have any but we can get from a harbor in Visby.

There seemed to be conflicting comments on which city to use as the GP-farm so it seemed up in the air and we obviously need to find out which we want fairly soon. We are building a workshop in Bruges on the plains which we will finish we can always farm over it if need be after a time but I would appreciate input.

But after reading through the whole thread I see Hamtastic would rather keep them together so maybe skip the extra food and go for the gold.

We really need to figure out the GP farm situation! I do not want the worker turns to go to waste.

Been a lllllooooooonnnnnggg week.

 

[pigswill]

Currency and guilds would allow market and grocer which give four merchant specialists. Maybe we'd be better off running merchants in Bruges and Visby so that they can generate GM independently; the alternative is NE in either which gives roughly the same gpp , allows second city to concentrate on something else though runs a risk of gp contamination. I'm surprised that there ain't a wonder that would be useful for our spare GE.

 

[Baru]

So maybe go with two GP farms? Why not.

At least that way we can know for sure where and what to build. We got the two, so cottage every other city, with a few farms to be able to work them, and we should have all that we wish for.
?

 

[pigswill]

I'd say go for both as GM farms; they both would need +8 food for 4 merchants apiece (+market and grocer (guilds)). A benefit to this is that we wouldn't be tied to caste system. It might be worth considering a state religion so we could run pacifism but that's not compulsory.

 

[Baru]

Sounds like a plan since I am the only one home in the "new world" and you are up much to early

I'll play after getting some sleep as I don't think I would do my best at the moment....damn micro brews.
It would have actually worked better if I had played tonight or now but as you were the only one to chime in, and at that 1 AM my time I think it best to wait for.....10 hrs or so. But then it is on!

 

[sooooo]

My opinion is that we should just have 1 GP farm (Bruges). At bruges we can just work the 4 food resources and employ millions of merchants with caste system. With a market and grocer and employing 4 merchants, it will be too slow. We can get double that with caste system. Also, 2 GP farms is a waste of (a) GP points and (b) a city. Visby can be much more productive to our empire with cottages and workshops on those floodplains.

 

[GreyFox]

Alternatively, we could do a two GP-Farm handover. We first use Visby as a GP-Farm, while the workers are chopping those jungles and Brunges is growing to become the new GP-Farm. At some point, when Brunges is ready, we swap out all the specialist in Visby after a GP has been popped. This way, nothing is wasted. Obviously, the GP-wonder (Nat Epic) should be built in Brunges.

--

 

[Cosmichail]

Too bad about Zwolle going into revolt. Isabella must have taken that barb city south of it and had the culture to pressure the city. I think we should watch our back now as either Isabella or Genghis or even both will declare on us soon.

I agree that Visby could serve as commerce/production and Bruges be the GP farm with the food resources. Greyfox makes a good point we could farm Visby until Bruges is ready since there is a lot of jungle there.

I would recommend we get some military to defend ourselves and even (if Izzy declares) go after that city south of Zwolle to take off the culture pressure. That's why I like a religion as at least you have some culture happening but now we have several cities without any.

 

[Baru]

Well more of not much for this round. We really need to check the govs so that they are not assigning the wrong people. It got tedious and I must admit that I didn't do it every turn but every-other at the most.

1) 1330: Saladin seems to be keeping a close eye on our lands and this should make me nervous. Fortunately I had to laugh when he came with the "Traveling Catapult Show", given the season we should assume he is launching pumpkins.


There is also an explorer in the heartland but he quickly leaves to check out the Khan.

BiSheng would give us 1070 for enginering...Tempting for pikes but I think that we should at least wait until education finishes to see if we can trade for it (thinking yes) if not then we can always pop the bulb and go for that, should take minimal turns after that...in fact I didn't check at the end. Does the decrease in research time for AI's having it apply to bulbs?
*interrupt Temple in Danzig for spearman since the horse archers are flying around, at least in the south, like a plague of locusts. We are building libraries almost everywhere which I horn in on alot, but never enough to lose any of the production on them, not sure the time restraints at this speed and level so I play careful with it.

2) 1340: Not a whole much happend but this was kind of weird. I didn't see any other troops close by but the Horse Archer vanishes and then there is a wounded barb swordsman. Better for us but it still bothers me. Is there a stack of Isabella's troops down there? Nothing appears for the rest of the round so I don't know.


I thought after the revolt that Zwolle would be a total loss but checking the tiles around it they went down an astounding 7% in our favour!

3) 1350: zzzzzzzzzz

4) 1360: Isabella wants us to give her paper!



NO! We happen to be traders not charity houses.



Ok I have seen lazy eyes in quite a few ( including two of my friends ) but she has lazy lip. That is just freaky. Take that as you will

5) 1370: Library finished in Rostock.
I haven't seen any barbs at all for a few turns.....either the "mystery troops" that killed the horse archer and wounded the sword demolished the city in the south or they are getting smarter, sadly I never find out.

We are running short on funds to support the minds of our loose knit of cities so we go down to 60% and are still at -6. Not a horrible situation.

 

[Baru]

And we go on.

6) 1380: Oh Sh1t! I didn't see that coming. It really is amazing what a spear can do thrusted through a thick tangle of vines. Didn't see this but, give props for the monkey's throwing poo.



At this point I think it necessary to move at least one advanced troop to the north so I do so.

Danzig went unhappy the last turn ( tweaked that ) but is now fine and holding steady at the crux so the jewish temple is in great demand, which will be finished.

7) 1390: We go down to 50% which I don't like, we need cash now.

I like Grey's idea of switching GP farms...it hurts to farm over a cottage/town but nothing to cottage a farm so we start farming the floodplains.

8) 1400: There was a scientist working in Danzig that I stopped early on which led to a turn or so of unhappy. We were at 75 GM and 24 GS I now we are at 77GM and 22GS,keep an eye on this, the scientist is to be used on a turn to turn basis, never going below 75% for the GM on the extreme and even this makes me nervous. I think now that we should just build, or chop, markets in all cities just so that we have the choice to assign a merchant.

9) 1410: Hey look at us, we are puny!



Puny-Pliny, I think he is just jealous that his name is not as original as his reports.

Catherine also wants paper ( no one will trade for it ) at least she is throwing in some cash ( 40 yeah right ).....I say no as since she is trading it shouldn't bring us a negative on relations. As the trading bug has hit everyone I try to see what we can get. I try for music for paper to Saladin..........no go.

10) 1420: Well sorry Pigswill but I am leaving it up to you to cure the unhappy in our lands.

Still got BiSheng in the capitol, I would say at least see what we can trade for Education before poping him.
There is a Settler in Lubeck that was working on my round ( and finished ) I kept them waiting. If you feel the need to settle, I would say go for the Wheat and clams city on the inland sea. We have been discusing it all game and still not settled there, just look at the "display yield" it is a coastal money mine with a lighthouse.

I set most of our cities on what I would call minimal growth, growing but at the slowest I could get them with working the cash money.

Our troops are all around trying to deploy to the most vulnerable cities.
Workers: I think it's time to start getting those few resources out of our fat crosses to trade. Last time I checked we had some very wealthy neighors and personally, I want to fleece them for all the got.



http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/82885/Hansa_AD-1420.Civ4SavedGame

 

[pigswill]

Got it. Will play tomorrow. I think we're better off with slavery than serfdom to whip buildings (markets,courthouses) and units. Clam/rice city seems an idea. I presume we're going for economics after education.

 

[Meatbuster]

Lurker's comment:
How about rush-building the Hagia Sophia so you can get out of Serfdom?

 

[hamtastic]

That's not a bad idea, although I doubt we have engineering right now. It is generally beneficial to have faster workers, and if we still ran serfdom a bit longer, I guess they'd be 100% faster? If we do get Hagia Sophia and decide to rush it with GE, it should go in Zwolle to fight back the SPanish culture. I'd put some extra troops over there too, if we're going to keep the city, as a Spanish attack would not surprise me - we seem to keep turning down her demands, and I assume we're low on power.

Don't forget that we can just build more troops to let our cities grow more. I'm sure you all know that, but the last report made me wonder, since it seemed like we were kind of trying to keep them from growing.

Oh, fyi, I like the hand-off to Bruges as the great merchant farm.

 

[GreyFox]

As for the GP-farm. I would rather Farm all that is available in Bruges. Even with a light house I believe (just a quick base food calculation and most likely off)
Bruges with farms = 56
Visby with lighthouse and farms = 45/46
Bruges wouldn't ever have any but we can get from a harbor in Visby.

I just remembered something: Baru, when calculating these numbers, did you take into account all food yeilds or did you just add up the excess food yeild? For comparison of which is better for a GP-Farm, we are only interested in the "excess food yeilds".

For eg. compare a city A with all deesrt tiles except for 2 corn farms which yield 5 food each, and a city B with 10 plains tiles. cityA gives 12 food, and cityB gives 22 food (pre-Biology). But obviously cityA is a GP-Farm site whereas cityB is not, since cityA gives 8 excess food whereas cityB gives only 2 excess food.

--

 

[pigswill]

Checked out the spare food situation. If Visby works fish, clams, irrigated fp and cottaged fp gives 10 spare; needs pop of 9, 4 to work tiles and 5 merchants. If Bruges works 2 bananas and rice gets 10 spare, pop of 8 (3 for tiles,5 merchants); add the pigs gets 13 spare, pop of 10 (4 for tiles, 6 merchants). But this is still a distance away.

1420 (Preturn) started to move units into cities to cure unhappy. Started moving settler and archer to rice/clams peninsula.

1430.
Deal with Sally; wheat for 4 gpt.

1440.
Lubeck builds crossbow, starts barracks.
Bruges completes library, starts market, borders pop.

1450.
Isabella declares war, gathers troops around Zwolle



Visby builds market, starts cat.

1460.
Mongolia suggests open borders, agree (might be checking us out for poss invasion but we need the trade, improves relations and he's likely to attack us regardless).
Kiel founded (rice, clams) starts theatre.



Isabella bombarding Zwolle.

1470.
Rostock builds library,starts crossbow.
Zwolle survives an attack (Izzy loses mace, HA, cat, our defending longbow and axe are injured).



1480.
The gallant defence is over.



Quiet elsewhere.

1490.
Spices are available; happy people; set cities to grow.
Visby builds cat, starts cat.

1500.
Our spear kills spanish HA; reinforcing crossbows on the way.
Discover education, start printing press. (I thought about tech options and decided to be greedy and gamble, music and eng are available, I thought wait for guilds and philosophy and try a 1:4 tech trade).

1505.
Lubeck builds barracks, starts longbow.
Rostock builds longbow, starts HA.

1510.
Danzig builds market, starts HA.
Visby builds cat, starts spear.




We seem to be trailing in everything but what the heck; still time to catch up; we definitely need more units.

 

[Baru]

I just remembered something: Baru, when calculating these numbers, did you take into account all food yeilds or did you just add up the excess food yeild? For comparison of which is better for a GP-Farm, we are only interested in the "excess food yeilds".

For eg. compare a city A with all deesrt tiles except for 2 corn farms which yield 5 food each, and a city B with 10 plains tiles. cityA gives 12 food, and cityB gives 22 food (pre-Biology). But obviously cityA is a GP-Farm site whereas cityB is not, since cityA gives 8 excess food whereas cityB gives only 2 excess food.

--

Well as said I was new to the nuances, including the MM aspect of it all.
As Pigswill calculated it was strictly base food production and not the excess.....I lived and learned.