Handy 21 Regular Pangaea AWD again

[Obormot]

I guess this is the same as asking "Are we still going to play if we miss the GL?". I think we may try it espesially if the GL will be built by our neighbours BTW, pangaea means that capturing it may be easy, just send a couple of armies to the GL city wherever it is and take out defeners one by one.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I kept researching because I thought building a market or two as soon as possible would be a good idea.

After currency I would horde money.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I guess this is the same as asking "Are we still going to play if we miss the GL?". I think we may try it espesially if the GL will be built by our neighbours BTW, pangaea means that capturing it may be easy, just send a couple of armies to the GL city wherever it is and take out defeners one by one.

That's what we did in the Magificient Seven game. In order to do that though we'll need some better attackers. JTs won't cut it.

 

[ThERat]

I think currency is good now for some markets to speed the hoarding. Anyway, what we most need is to expand and keep the AI at bay. We might also want to find some resources for once. Spain should have both and they are the proper target to acquire those things

 

[Ansar]

lurker's comment: Does the AI load up their cities with lots of defense in AW? If so, its going to be hard to get the GL city. Don't worry about JT's, that is why you have AC's. Right?

 

[handy900]

We got IRON baby!

IBT
Good thing we got SoZ since we have no iron.
We have 12 cities, so I’ll use the leader Bugs left for me to build another AC army. AC armies attacking in tandem should be able to do serious damage to Spain without cats until Pikes show up.
We already have the FP, and so the next leader after this one can rush the Pentagon, then the HE.
I’m going to build some warriors. We can use them short term for MP, and we can (hopefully) upgrade them to swords later.
Spain has swords, so I’ll try to explore/pillage/raze that way to clear a path to settle toward Iron.

IBT
France shows up. I decided not to trade and just declare. We look pretty good for the Glib. We could use some buffer cities to protect the Glib however.

Turn 1 730
Load some AC in the army
Currency dropped a turn when we met France.
We are now at war with 5 civs.
No battles

Turn 2 710
Set research to zero. Glib in 12, France & Germany know Lit, but have yet to begin the Glib.
We can mine some towns stuck on size 6 to build faster JTs.
JT army kills a spear
New AC army kills a spear and 2 swords.
Elite AC kills Sword

IBT
Portugal offers peace for Literature.

Turn 3 690
Tikal (Glib) drawing a lot of attention as Portugal sends 7 units (S, 5 A,W) and Germany sends 2 Archers.
They may bypass on the way to the lightly defended capital.
Elite JT kills a French warrior.
We have 2 cities now @ 8 shields for 4 turn JT.

Turn 4 670
The battle of Tikal nets us 2 slaves and 5 dead archers with no losses. Two elite wins produced no leaders. Even if we had the Pentagon we have no extra units to load into armies.
Four more AI will assault Tikal next turn but with cats we should do okay. Soon we will see a steady diet of swords from Portugal.
We hook up the spices, which have drawn a lot of attention from Spain.
The JT army is parked on the Spices for the time being.
AC army finds iron in the far NW.
With luck we will have it captured and hooked up next couple of turns. Culture is good versus Spain, so I plan to keep the city and pop rush walls.

Turn 5 650
Germany is sending horses, so be careful with the workers.
@ Tikal JT Elite loses to wounded archer Kill 2 archers.
Capture Iron at Vitoria and build a road to bring the iron to the empire.
Lots of Spanish swords roaming the mountains.That was Spain’s only iron. The city is in a crappy location with mountains all over the place. The Iron road may get pillaged before we can get all the Spanish swords killed.
Settler must wait for protection, so the capital will build a sword until available units catch up to our settler.

IBT

Turn 6 630
Not much. Poke around a little.
Second AC army is headed to the iron to deal with the Spanish swords in the hills. Once they are gone we can raze Spain pretty fast I think. Our new swords can defend Tikal.

Turn 7 610
So far there is no narrow isthmus south of us, just a very wide front.

Turn 8 590
Rush walls in Vitoria
AC armies Kill 6 Spanish Swords in the Mountains of Vitoria. Three swords left for next turn.
Germany & Portugal are both sending swords to Tikal now. Small numbers for now.
May need to consider using one AC army to pillage while the other kills the Spanish. Facing archers would let us expand slowly, swords will pin us down.

Turn 9 570
We get a 10-shield city in Palenque for 3 turn swords
Kill a sword and two warriors @ Tikal gaining a slave. Lots of elite wins but no leaders.
Kill another sword @ the Iron with an army

Turn 10
There is a settler on the hill under the JT army.
A bunch of folks start Sun Tzu.
Capture Seville – One spear garrison. I think we can starve this, rush walls and leave it empty. If an Ai gets near it (from a boat) just abandon it. It is the far NE corner of the Map. It sits on a hill, so you may want to rush a spear & build walls.

Be sure to move the AC army next to Vitoria (Iron) into the city next turn. I’d guess all the Spanish swords are dead now. May be a straggler in the capital.


Notes:
This game "feels" pretty good right now.
If we do a good job MMing, protect our workers and pillage the crap out of the AI we may have a shot.
Ai is walking straight toward the lightly defended capital creating a great kill zone.
Five turns to the Glib. We lost a turn or maybe 2 when the AI was parking on tiles next to Tikal.
We still have monopoly on Lit with the 5 AI we know. .
In size six cities with no aqueduct we need to build mines to bump the shield count.

 

[handy900]

Roster
1. Handy
2. ThERat (swap with Bugs)
3. Greebley UP
4. M60A3TTS
5. Obormot
6. Sir Bugsy

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Great job getting the iron. If we can get the GL, we have a good chance. The game is no where near in the bag. It is nice to be able to be on the offensive and be expanding at this point in he game.

There must be some way we can reduce our front. Keep exploring.

 

[Greebley]

I got it. I will play tomorrow or the next day. Not sure which yet.

 

[ThERat]

nice progress again, we had 4 sets of really good progress now

 

[handy900]

There must be some way we can reduce our front. Keep exploring.

Amen.

For at least the time being, the tactics of Germany & Portugal [send all their forces towards the capital past Tikal] has provided us a narrow front with a kill zone. France & Iroquois did not show up in numbers on my turns, and France will probably attack in the far west near their border. Watch for that. We should maintain a strong garrison in the west to see if we can perhaps induce them to avoid those towns. I doubt that will work since France has to go a long way around.

Since the Spanish are about done, we won't see much from our east unless there is another civ SE of Spain. I think Iroquois are somewhere to the SSE of us [that's where thir archer came from]. Lots of room to expand into Spain and some pretty good land too.

The game is no where near in the bag.

No doubt, but it does not feel like a lost cause yet, which is pretty good after this many turns. Keep building settlers.


After we kill Spain we really should try to get one or two armies out pillaging to slow AI growth & production. Long term we will save a lot of our units and pop more leaders if we can fight archers & LB instead of swords & knights. This will also let us know where the lux are so we can expand in that direction.

Looks like the Glib is a lock with 5 turns left and no one else building it.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: GLib is very likely but not in the bag. Sun Tzu could cascade to it if the AI got Lit in 3 turns or less.

IBT: Lots of enemies. Mostly of low caliber.

530 BC: Attack on Toledo with the Army.

IBT: Lots of enemy units. No suprises though

510 BC: Toledo is captured.

IBT: Everyone gets Lit. Cascade is now possible, but GLib in 2 for us.

490 BC: Armies healing

IBT: We survive the one turn we could have lost the GLib. It will be ours now.

470 BC: Kill units.

450 BC: We get a leader and rush Pentagon.

IBT: We build Pentagon
We get Theology and Chivalry, but not Engineering from the GLib.

430 BC: Capture Barcelona. Horses=Knights is spotted.

410 BC: Germany is fighting someone purple/pink (not Iroquois).

390 BC: Decide to get Anarchy out of the way - the builds I wanted completed (MDI) have finished.

370 BC: Capture Pamploma

350 BC: We now have size 4 ACav Armies. The Jav Army needs another Jav (I would add a Jav rather than a Pike so we can enslave).
Attack Madrid with Jav Army

Notes:
Pamplona will be captured next turn. This is planned. it will make it smaller and lure the last Spear "behind our lines" into range. The army next to Pamplona is a bit injured and may or may not have to rest first.

Similarly, Spain can waltz into Barcelona - they do have possible horses. Again I don't really care. We can take it back again. I am keeping the cities alive because we don't want to drain our population to build cities out in Spanish lands.

The game will be a bit rough through the Anarchy years, but that would be true no matter what (holding off Anarchy the last game did not work). I would continue to use the armies to Conquer Spain I think we have enough defense to not lose cities in the west for 5 turns.

Monarchy will be rough at the start, but irrigation will get our city sizes up so we can grow. Size 7 cities have only 1 less unit support than despot.

We have Theology but not Engineering. It is possible we may not get Engineering from the GLib.

We have enough cities for a fourth army and almost enough for a fifth (19 cities I think).

 

[Greebley]

Horses are right outside Pamplona. If we capture Madrid, we should get them.

5 more turns of Anarchy

 

[Obormot]

Good work. I agree with keeping spanish cities.

 

[handy900]

Iron, horses, GLib and a revolution. We look much better than in the last game at this point, and keeping spanish cities is a good idea. Perhaps we could join workers to core cities to get them to 7 faster once anarchy ends.

Roster
1. Handy
2. ThERat
3. Greebley
4. M60A3TTS UP
5. Obormot
6. Sir Bugsy

 

[M60A3TTS]

Got it. I should start tonight, although may not finish until tomorrow night. We have several un-garrisoned towns along the coast, so that's inviting a landing. We'll see what happens. 5 turns of anarchy left.

 

[handy900]

Got it. I should start tonight, although may not finish until tomorrow night. We have several un-garrisoned towns along the coast, so that's inviting a landing. We'll see what happens. 5 turns of anarchy left.

Yeah - the AC armies will need to to lay back along the Spanish coast until anarchy ends. Eventually we can cover that ground with some knights once we grab the horses. Can't afford to tie the armies up playing defense for very long.

 

[Greebley]

I think the Armies should go after Madrid. They have been dealing with Spanish sneaks most recently. The last one is the spearman. near there.

I agree we don't want to tie up the armies. I don't think we care much if Spain takes back size 1 cities, which is why I mention Going for Madrid. If we do lose a city we can then have one Army backtrack a bit.

Yeah, the coast may be an issue. Boats have been light so far with only one landing but that may change.

Switching govts was going to be dangerous no matter when we did it, so I did it now - not because we have plenty of units, but rather because we will always be short on units so there is little point on waiting. My hope is to survive anarchy with all town intact. That looked doable.

 

[Own]

lurker's comment: That is a wide front .

This is just marvelous. Stunning, maginificent, fantastic, impressive.

 

[handy900]

I

think the Armies should go after Madrid.

I agree with that and with the gov't switch.
I was just suggesting the armies hang around Spain (perhaps one to the other front even) after we take Madrid. In other words, take Madrid & play some defens with the armies until we are Monarchs. Then we need to get those boys after resources.

We can discuss this more later, but one option would be to use the armies to pillage and attack only size 6 towns on flat land with the two armies. This would slow down the attacks (no roads) and hopefully remove lux & resources. The Ai would build settlers, lose production, and maybe even fight with each other if we can break trade deals bu pillaging the roads around capital cities.