HAM-01: The Hanseatic League

[Cosmichail]

You did quite a bit of fighting already. I didn't look at the spoiler (actually missed it but see that now). She will keep coming for a while but once it diminshes should be able to advance. Those cannons are great too so we won't need rifles for a bit yet. Not until we have quite a few CR grennies.

 

[sooooo]

Lol, I asked for a skip yesterday and I'm on deck again today

Take your time Cosmichail, I should be free to play on Wednesday.

 

[Cosmichail]

You know me Soooo I'll be done tonight. Why don't we take a break and discuss our strategy, ideas before you play on Wednesday. Since there is only four of us now it will go fast.

 

[hamtastic]

@cosmic - yes, that new roster looks fine. I don't know that soooooo ever got his skip, but yes, that's fine.

I must admit that the only military I built during my turns were catapults to use as military police for happiness. Sorry, but we did want more infrastructure, and I assumed we would be buying our military with universal suffrage, so why bother building it earlier? But you know what they say about when you ass|u|me things.

@all: why not build the maces, research rifling, and then turn our rifles into CR2 rifles? Also, another odd difference for us right now is that our lack of warring has left us with few experienced units. Oh well.

 

[Cosmichail]

Personally I rarely use rifles for offense and here's why:

Grenadiers: +50% attack vs. Rifleman with CR2 makes them quite a bit stronger fighting rifles defending cities then rifles. I usually upgrade grenadiers to infantry from that point.

Mind you rifles do compliment a stack nicely for mounted units but when I use them for that give them combat promotions. Will look at that Hamtastic not a bad idea.

As to getting experience well Greyfox has done some fighting and we had some CR2 grennies so we should be good against the pyscho queen.

 

[GreyFox]

Actually good thing you built the cats ... give me access to instant cannons ... though I admit I wasted a couple of them.

 

[Cosmichail]

I have played but will probably post tomorrow since I am feeling the need to sleep soon. However I thought I would bring up one important thing that I haven't noticed before.

Permanent Alliances are enabled. Yep I said it and well than we should go for that and then diplo should be much easier. What we need is a defensive pact for a while or a mutual war for a while but I am sure you vets already know that. The partner must also be friendly too and there is other criteria such as being no. 1 but we don't have to worry about that.

I have looked at the first page of the thread and no mention of that. Did you do that intentionally Hamtastic as it must have slipped your mind. This is important as it makes a win much easier now.

The war with Isabella is stalemating right now. Take out a bunch of her units and then another batch shows up but she's bound to run out soon and Soooo will be able to move ahead soon.

Cavs do well against conquistadors only when they have combatII upgrade. I was getting 90 percent odds. Grennies suck against them but that's because of the 50% melee bonus they have.

EDIT: melee wouldn't matter since Grens are gunpowder but still don't do that well against them.

 

[hamtastic]

Erm. Permanent alliances wasn't particularly enabled on purpose, but I don't think it violates our idea of being good traders. Should we go for being pals with Cathy?

 

[GreyFox]

Provided her power is not #1 (ours couldn't possibly be). Let's hope it is washington.

If that is our staregy, w ehave to cancel all deals with Sally the next time she requested.

 

[Cosmichail]

After some examination it would appear Cathy is too strong and she might say we're fine on our own. Saladin wouldn't be a good contender but what I was thinking we should think about Genghis. He makes a good warrior dog too. Washington really dislikes us now and not likely. We might after we get Izzy out of the way think about warring with Washington to gain a bonus with Genghis. The two of us combined would make us no. 1 and likely a good contender for a diplomatic win.

PS: will be posting shortly

 

[Cosmichail]

TO: Corporate shareholders
Fm: CEO

Date: Sept. 1820

Our current state of economy looking good so now we have the ability to initiate a hostile takeover which oddly enough was initiated by the Spanish Corporation “Los run you out of town”. The attempt failed and right now we are attempting to take over this corporation but so far their constant attacks keep us from doing any damage. This corporation seems to have an endless supply of attackers but surely at some point our boys will move ahead. We are accumulating superior forces at their border and their constant losses has to have some affect on their economy and happiness.

Our people are kind of unhappy at the hostile takeovers and need some appeasement. We contact the Saladin corporation also known as “Religious artifacts at wholesale prices” and make several trades with him. At first we were reluctant to consider these trades but then see that we are selling goods to him. So we trade dyes for clam and gems for rice It seems we got the better deal and our people like those dyes and gems. (greedy buggers)

At the stock exchange our stock continues to climb as word of another attempt keeps people buying. We are suffering losses but dealing greater losses to our enemy for example we loose 2 grens but she looses 5 units. We continue this tid for tad exchange dealing her the greater losses but I feel her attacks are diminishing and we should be able to advance soon.

We find that Catherine (the babe) and head of the corporation “Cossacks gonna wipe you out” has some money to spend. We cancel the clam deal and get incense. (D’oh did it again maybe should leave this for Greyfox) but even so we need the incense for our people to burn incense to forget about their difficulties and mask the smell of pot in their homes. (did I say that) Figure might as well sell her fish since our health is ok but might want to retract this deal should we need health.

We call up GK head of the corporation “stamping my fists feels good” and he’s got an extra buck and why let him waste it on hookers and clubs. We renegotiate the deal for the pigs and get that buck. Poor guy now he can’t go to that club.

Have needed culture slider to some degree but have turned it down due to incense. Now Hamtastic head of the corporation “impossible variants are us” feels Seville is waste but we should take it in the opinion of this humble servant.

Now it’s up to Sooooo to do his usual warring and kick some corporate butt. (just threaten to cut off their expense account that will make them surrender). There are more soldiers on the way to Rostock the city of forests and some Grens accumulating at the south side of Zwolle. Suggest attack from there rather than the north side since it easier to catch Isabella on open ground on the south side. There is a stack on the mine north of Zwolle and some solidiers of Isabella attacking from the northern forest but we should be able to take them out. Once we get rid of that force in north we could move some grens (not all should use some to defend that side) and cannons to the south side and advance from there. We have some forests for protection and force Izzy on to open ground allowing us to take her out easier than on the north side where there is nothing but forest.

As to techs researched during the game. We delayed rifling till the 9th turn so as to not loose the beakers. (some say 10 turns to loose the beakers) and during that time we discovered steam power. GW has asked for it several times but he can go fly a kite with a big metal piece on the top in a lightning storm. Good news we have coal just near Bruges but could be overwhelmed by GK culture so it is advisable to build some culture in Bruges. We are working on Railroad now and the workers will have fun with that and Isabella won't keep up with that production.

Have fun Soooooo

 

[hamtastic]

Sounding good. I have no particular problem with keeping Seville, but it's not really that great. We probably should keep it just so that nobody else settles in that area. Madrid looks pretty good.

Impossible variants? Huh? Here's one: conquest win, no military builds allowed. Edit: I could call it "HAM-02: Pure Foolishness."

 

[sooooo]

Looks like our best chance is to capture Spain and one more civilization, and win a UN vote with the help of Genghis and Saladin.

With that in mind I bribe Genghis into the Spanish war for MT. The best thing to do with our artist is probably save him for a GA.



And advance on Seville. We kill a few stacks outside Zwolle: Spanish conq, cat, cat, cat, gren, gren are killed, we only lose a gren. IBT we kill another gren on defense, next turn we get hit outside seville losing a gren but killing a cat, a gren and a conq.

Bombard Seville, kill yet another stack of 3 conqs and a cat at Zwolle.

Take Zwolle losing 1 cannon (2 cannons and a cav withdrew).



With these counterattacks never cease? Attack at Seville leads to 2 more dead spanish horses and a cat.

Washington demands our WM, and I give it to him. Railroad comes in and I ponder for a while. Assembly line would help our warring, but I figure Spain will be pretty much dead before we get the expensive tech, build the infantry and get them to the front line. I'm going to go for the techs towards Mass Media, hope this is OK with the team.

So I trade for 3 of them:




Don't particularly like that last trade with Cathy, but hey, we're traders. We have oil near Rostock. Start research on electricity.

Military situation:



That attacking stack doesn't look so balanced, but that's because our cannons are healing in Seville after they withdrew. More are on the way.

On the last turn we got a merchant in Bruges. I couldn't remember where we said to merge him, so I left him unmoved.

Save is here.

 

[Cosmichail]

Wow Sooooo that's quite an army. Izzy should fall pretty fast now. I tried to rack my brain but what is WM? I think Washington should be our next victim as Genghis don't like him and two wars with Genghis will certainly get us close to the PA. We will need communism/or fascism though but good trades too. The trade with Cathy is fine and those Railroads give us now the ability to build machinegunners which are great for defending cities whilst the army goes and conquer.

Well here's the roster:

Hamtastic -UP
Greyfox - on deck
Cosmichail
Sooooo - just played

 

[hamtastic]

I think WM is World Map. I think the attack stack looks quite nice - certainly a lot more than when I last played. Good job, folks. I'll try to keep us on the path to PM with GK and UN. Dang initials for everything around here. (This is my got it).

 

[Cosmichail]

DUH you're right hamtastic just my brain wouldn't correlate.

 

[hamtastic]

Dear Employees,

Our company has renegotiated its trading agreements:

Upon noticing that Japancorp lacked the clams we've worked on developing and that ABG (Arabian, Buddhist, & Green) lacked our tasty beef imports, we decided to renogotiate. We cancel our trade of dyes for clams with ABG and sell them to Japancorp for 11 "gold." However, we note that ABG no longer possessed dyes to trade us for our beef! Although they had previously a greater supply, they must have lost their other source during their hostile engagement with "Russia." To allow our employees to continue their work without our beautifully dyed uniforms, we install televisions in all offices to boost morale (up culture slider to 10%). Of course, as the engineer of these great changes, I will likely receive a 10 million dollar bonus (Sorry for screwing them up)

You may remember 1916: our year of engagement with the Santiago branch. One of our grenadier operatives was lost, although our actuarial scientists had predicted a high chance of success (74%). In any case, we soon won exclusive rights to Santiago. Another high point was the appointment of our new star employee to Lubeck.

ABG (Arabian, Buddhist, & Green) reconnected their source of dyes. Since we know how much our employees appreciate this, we trade our remaining clams for these dyes. This is followed by a repo team taking away the televisions. There were reports that our employees grew unhealthy because of a lack of a varied diet, but we presume that our companies will deal with this by importing fresh water and a greater variety of foods.

In 1922, we attempted a hostile takeover of business in the city of Madrid. Our actuarial scientists must need more training or some new leadership, as they wrongly predicted high rates of success for our employees: one grenadier failed at 67% likelihood, one at 95%, and one "cannon" at 85%. Nonetheless, the city is ours. We press onward with our campaign against the Spanish, and are assisted by Japancorp as well, as Spainola had declare hostilities against them at some point in the past.

Finally, AngryHorseCorp sold our company the formula for "biology" in exchange for our proprietary formula for "physics" and additional compensation. (hilarious effect on Bruges - suddenly started gaining 13 food/turn) Keep up the good work - we will soon benefit greatly from our growth!

View attachment 142583

 

[hamtastic]

Roster:

Hamtastic - just played
Greyfox - UP, UP, and AWAY!
Cosmichail - on deck
Sooooo

The war is going well - after a bit of healing we should be ready to continue to move westward. I've been assembling another mini-stack in Seville for moving on the city that's to the southwest of it. We may want to raze that and Pamplona. I'd be tempted to take peace if we can get the culture off of Madrid...

 

[Cosmichail]

Just to let you know Greyfox is in the process of flying from US to Singapore and might be a day or two (or more big time jetlag). Let's just wait for him regardless of the 24/48 rule since I am pretty busy this weekend and really can't do much until Monday.

 

[hamtastic]

Thanks for the update. Yeah, I agree we should wait for him.

Should we maybe revolt back into hereditary rule? Especially before we capture all the Spanish cities? We do have some pretty nasty happiness problems, and I'm not sure they'll all go away with the end of war.