HUI Game #1 - Pacal II

[learner gamer]

Just ...three...last...points.

Point one: Beginning with the mundane (but, I promise, it gets more exciting), keep in mind that, at some stage, you’re likely going to want to stop working the cottage NE of Mutal and farm over it (to spread irrigation to the corn 1N, 1NE of Mutal and allow for one more specialist). With that in mind, it might be worthwhile working the other unworked cottage 1E, 1SE of Mutal instead.

Point two: Looking again at the save, I just noticed that Shaka has a X-bow in Nodwengu. (Perhaps that’s why his power has just started rising so fast?) To my mind, this only increases the value of engineering (as opposed to paper) as your next tech (for the trebs).

Point three: IMHO, it also means you have two very clear choices re: your forthcoming war: (a) go in imminently and take the risk that Shaka doesn’t have too many X-bows waiting for you (perhaps you could move your chariot N of Tours through his lands W of you to check this), or be prepared to sustain casualties if he does, or (b) wait until you’ve produced more, stronger, military before you go in. It’s a close call (and one you’ll know best given your earlier post mentioning how lightly some of Shaka’s cities are defended) but, IMHO, you likely need to wait at least a few turns to produce a few more siege units (in particular) and jumbos, given that you’re looking to fight a two front war. I’d love to know what the more experienced players would do here.

In either case, there’s certainly an argument for using your newly acquired skill of implementing binary research (thanks JammerUno & kossin ) to temporarily drop the research slider to zero and use the 117 GPT that results, to upgrade an axe (125 GPT) or a CR2 sword (110 GPT) or two before going in. (Note: (i) this at least gives your CR2 maces some chance against a siege weakened X-bow and (ii) it means you have a natural counter if Shaka techs to engineering and upgrades any UUs he has around.) If doing this of course, just don’t forget to turn the slider back up again after. (And yes, I’ve forgotten this too occasionally. ) Ideally, I’d love to suggest teching engineering first before turning the slider off (and then adding a few trebs to your stacks) but, the question is: can, or do you want to, wait that long (maybe 15+ turns after upgrading to maces, and producing and moving trebs to the front line) before DoWing?

Look forward to reading how it all goes.

 

[kossin]

Some of this is already said by previous posters, just wrote down what I saw by going through the save.

Nappy has extra gpt for your fish.

I noticed you have your workers on Automation. Stop that right now. They're wasting turns! Building roads where you 'll never need them?
You could instead farm to spread irrigation to your grain-based tiles. Food is just about the most important improvement.

You can MM your cities slightly better:
Mutal - irrigate the corn
Lakamha - there's a riverside plains hill you could mine to gain 1 commerce/turn
Novgorod - working a non-riverside desert hill mine while you have farmed floodplains for whipping?
Moscow - It's stagnating with a 8-happy surplus. Work bananas+corn.

Don't be afraid to whip mines. You'll get way more infrastructure and units. You've got 0 whipping-anger in your whole empire! No point staying in Slavery if you don't whip.

Taking a quick detour for Monotheism to run OR would help building infra as well.

Happy cap isn't a worry right now, you are paying 20gpt for your army: disband all those useless chariots and obsolete units, it'll save you about 9gpt.

Production would help you more, whip some forges everywhere, you'll get a 50% bonus on buildings from that point on (which will help for universities for Oxford) and also a bonus on whipping.

If you can bribe Shaka to war at any time, it'll make his cities cherries for your picking.

Anyway, good luck!

 

[Shafi]

I'm finally about to start playing the next round. sorry about the delay people. That NC-JC game is way too much fun ... .
@ learner gamer - Thanks for all the input as usual
@ Kossin - thank you very much, my micro is probably the worst aspect of my play and i appreciate all the advice.

 

[Alkaloids]

Finally. It's been days, and I'm strangely interested in following this game.

Thanks for doing this, btw, I enjoy it.

 

[Shafi]

For the long awaited 6th round, sorry about the delay but sometimes you just dont seem to have enough time on your hands ...

This is a relatively shorter round, to start with we focused on some of the micro management issues pointed out after the previous round. We traded the fish with nappy for the 6 GPT. Soon Nappy comes demanding for ivory and we give in and we convert to no state religion in an attempt to keep Nappy off of our backs.
We make all preparations for the impending war with Shaka, I have a chariot continuously scouting Shaka’s lands, meanwhile I focus all my espionage points on Shaka so that I may be able to use spies to take down city defenses.

Spoiler :

We complete researching Paper and then Engineering for Trebs and now begin researching philosophy. We pop our 2nd GS in Mutal and use him to bulb part of Education.

Spoiler :

We finish researching philosophy and research Compass and then Optics to set ourselves up for picking up Astronomy from liberalism.

We decide the time is right to attack and decide to go in, favoring speed for numbers, not wanting to delay the invasion in fear of encountering too many Long Bows. We attack with two stacks, one the major invasion force and the other a small force to take the two southern Zulu cities …

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Next is where in hindsight we seem to have made a mistake , we researched Feudalism for Long Bows fearing a counter attack by Shaka. However our Melee and Phant based army held off any counter attacks with the help of a fort placed strategically. This was a wasted tech and has delayed the race to liberalism and could very well cost us. We finished Feudalism and begin researching Education.

The Rice & Ivory city falls 1st …

Spoiler :

The double gem city falls next …

Spoiler :

And a 3rd city falls in quick succession …

Spoiler :

So far we made short work of Shaka’s defenses, but these are peripheral cities and our main stack has taken some damages and needs to heal, also we lost both of our spies without being successful.

We march on the Zulu capital, but find the defenses at 100%, without a spy to take down the defenses an extended siege may not be successful with our small field army, our success has been based on speed of attack. We decide to sue for peace and get Polytheism + Aesthetics for peace.

A quick look at our tech position and the demographics screens …

Spoiler :

So at the end of this short round, the strategic question for me is as follows, do we continue military production and focus on building some spies + more Phants + maces to take a few more cities, or do we wait for more advanced units to DoW shaka again, say maybe Cannons or Rifles ?
Also what should be a priority in terms of military techs? Cannons? Rifles? Cuirassiers?
When I started the war with Shaka my objective was to pick up those three peripheral cities + his capital but the capital defenses were a bit too strong and we had to back out, however we can be reasonably happy with the outcome,
Also, to be quite honest I was hardly paying attention to micro or most non military stuff during the war and certain things might have been ignored, you are also free to nit pick in these areas …

And here's the save game file

 

[Tyrant Roger]

You should attack the Zulu capital. You have already invested heavily in military. You might as well use it. Without the capital the gem city will be swallowed up in
Zulu culture. And if you take the capital he may capitulate.

 

[Alkaloids]

I agree. I took a look at your save and was pretty surprised you were hesitant to move on. Your stack looked pretty solid and if it took multiple rounds to get the gem city, a huge proportion of his forces will have been wiped out by now.

I don't know much - have to cheat to win on Noble unless it's just a praet romp - but that was my impression. Granted you'll have culture problems with the capital, too, but at least the gem city will be able to breathe.

Also, it looks like Napoleon is spamming knights? Scary.

 

[shyuhe]

Just make sure Nappy doesn't backstab you by picking up Shaka as a vassal and declaring on you. And even if he does, you have elephants so he can't do much damage.

 

[JammerUno]

Some Advice:

• Like you said; teching feudalism isn't the best move ever, unless you want vassalage or don't have iron. Axes, spears and HA make great defenders against almost everything. More importantly, you have 'phants, so there's absolutely no need ever for LBs.
  
• You teched optics but aren't doing anything with it, it's usually a good plan to have two triremes to upgrade once you finish to give you the best chance of getting the circumnavigation bonus.
  
• If you don't have the siege, winning will be hard. Even then, trebs and cats against castle and walls is really slow going. There's two natural warfare gaps in the game. Post engineering and pre cats. At both times cultural defence will be tough, keep that in mind.

2 decent sites and a 3rd one under cultural pressure isn't a bad result though. I would worry, you're still looking good to win this without too much trouble.

 

[learner gamer]

you are also free to nit pick in these areas …

Nit pick, moi? ...and there I was giving out all this advice to help (i) you with your game, (ii) others to learn and (iii) indeed, do so myself.

Returning to a more serious note and back to your game Shafi:

Firstly, well done capturing Shaka’s peripheral cities. Had you been a little more lucky with the spies, Ulundi could also easily be in your hands right now. In addition, your economy’s in good shape - you’re number one or two in the categories that matter, so, even though things may look a little tough at the mo’, you’ve done very well.

As a general theme, given that your economy’s in good shape (and continuing to build infrastructure in your new cities will only help), I’d definitely advocate continuing to build military ahead of another war with Shaka. Moreover, the rate at which I’ve seen Shaka and Nappy spam troops in the past when DoW’d means I think that this decision has already been made for you. (BTW, when it comes to infrastructure, is there any reason for building a temple in Nongoma rather than a library for the +25% research or a Buddhist monastery – to build a missionary for and enable another monastery in Moscow?)

That said, the upcoming turns covered by the peace treaty are very important for two reasons:
(a) you currently have no means of reinforcing Nobamba except through French territory since, unfortunately, the gem tile 1N, 1NE of Nobamba is still in Shaka’s hands, preventing you from reinforcing the city via the fort. Whilst you could redeploy two of the workers around Nongoma to connect you to French roads S of the city to speed up this route (leaving other workers to be re-deployed to cottage Nodwengu and / or as I mention later), it’s probably better to simply move any and all troops you build for war to your fort so they can hit the front ASAP once war starts.
(b) I agree with JammerUno, the biggest obstacle you face re: capturing multiple cities in war with Shaka at this point is not your lack of troops, but more your lack of siege. Looking at the troops you have around Nobamba for example, I count fifteen city attackers (maces and elephants) but only eight siege, four of which are catas. Moreover, you currently have four cities producing maces. As I’ve moved up the levels, one of the best rules of thumb I’ve found is to have at least as many (and very often, significantly more) siege in a stack as I have attacking troops. That way, I can either (a) severely bombard defences on turn one and then / or (b) inflict significant collateral damage to a fortified enemy stack, before sending my ground troops in, effectively just to clean up. Assuming you’re looking to re-declare at a time when you don’t have a significant technological advantage (eg. rifles vs longbows), I’d humbly submit that siege and spy production is hugely important right now. With that in mind, I’d humbly suggest getting Novgorod, Lakamha and even Moscow to build / whip trebs during the peace treaty once their maces are complete. Extra troops can wait until the trebs are built IMHO.

As a result of (a) and (b) above, I think the objective of the next war you fight has to be to take not only Ulundi, but also Bulawayo, crippling Shaka - and giving you access to Nobamba via the fort. To this end, I think the timing of the war will depend entirely on how long it takes you to build another stack to take out Bulawayo (bearing in mind Shaka will shortly be able to produce maces). Once you’ve done this, I’d then suggest:
(a) keeping the X-bow, elephant and maybe the axe to defend Nobamba. Everything else takes on Ulundi.
(b) using the maces currently in production, the trebs and other units you whip in, and units currently at the fort to hit Bulawayo.

You have an interesting choice re: what to build in Mutal next. A forge would give you long term benefits but trebs would boost an immediate DoW after the peace treaty expires. On balance, I’d whip a forge at a sweet spot and then build a treb for war.

Starvation and zero food in the granary in Nobamba means you lose a pop next turn. To avoid this, whip in a spy immediately and then recommence the library. Further spy production should be undertaken by Rostov or St Pete’s (after its sacrificial treb has finished) since neither has a barracks. To speed this up, whip the temple in Rostov immediately and build a spy or two to send to Ulundi. Together with the spy from Nobamba, you could have 2 or 3 sitting in Ulundi when you re-declare.

Re: your tech path. I presume liberalism is next, but why the preference for astronomy (and teching off compass and optics)? For the benefit of me and others who want to learn, is it because you’re gunning for the circumnavigation bonus, or for the observatories (or indeed both) from astro? One of the reasons I ask is because, if the former, is it worthwhile, as JammerUno mentioned, leveraging optics (which I note that Nappy also has) to build two caravels ASAP in Uxmal and send them off in different directions? If the observatories, how quickly do you think you’ll be able to build them in your commerce cities given that you seem to want to war? Another reason I ask is that with astronomy obsoleting Stonehenge (which you built), you’ll lose the free monument in each city and have one less culture point each turn in any newly captured city to fend off Shaka...all at a time when the absence of drama means you can’t yet build culture to pop borders. In other words, I guess I'm really asking how does astronomy fit into your plan to occupy your continent ASAP, which presumably you still want to do, to keep open the possibility of conquest or domination victories?

With all that in mind, if you’re talking of war, is it worthwhile considering nationalism as the free tech? After all, you need it for cuirassiers, which could (i) give you an earlier tech advantage (ii) give you a natural counter to Nappy’s UU, the musketeer (with its 2MP) and (iii) they are a natural upgrade for your many chariots. (Although Alkaloids is right to acknowledge that Nappy has guilds, Nappy may actually be closing in on gunpowder to spam musketeers.)

I notice you popped a GG during this war. Is there any reason however why he’s in Nodwengu? I only ask because, IMHO, he’d be better off attached to a more mobile chariot as a MASH unit. If you do this BTW, it also increases the value of literature as a post war tech, since you would then be able to build the HE in Novgorod (as well as the NE in Mutal.)

On another topic, I notice you’re not generating many GP points at this time. With that in mind, how about temporarily re-assigning two of the coastal tiles in St Pete’s to create both a priest and an engineer specialist (which are currently the only two GP’s this city will generate)? If you then pop a prophet 19 turns later, you could burn him / her for a golden age. Popping a GE meanwhile gives you some interesting choices (i) a shiny wonder (ii) steel if you stay away from printing press or (iii) thinking longer term, Mining Inc. Talking of great people, I’d be very inclined to run two merchants rather than a spy in Mutal (ie. give up one corn for one turn and re-assign the spy specialist) to (i) provide some gold and (ii) improve the chances of generating a GM for a trade mission (eg. to get gold to upgrade those chariots to cuirassiers). If you whip a forge in Mutal, you could also add a GE specialist to the city.

When it comes to micro and worker management, I’d look at the following: Novgorod’s currently working a 3H 1C mine which should instead work the elephants. In St Pete’s, I’d cottage the watermill, the workshop and unimproved tile to maximise commerce since the city has an academy (thanks Cathy ). Even after working these tiles, the city will still have a food surplus which can be used to run science specialists after it generates a prophet or engineer for you. In Chichen Itza, I’d work the 4H mine rather than a coastal tile to take 5 turns off building the Moai – whipping coastal tiles to finish it will only undo the Statues’ benefit. Lastly, I’d be inclined to cottage Moscow’s watermill if you plan on staying in bureaucracy.

Lastly, shyuhe makes a great point re: Nappy vassalising Shaka which, IMHO, reinforces two points: (i) now that phase one of the war with Shaka is over, there is value in moving around a few troops in your central cities to your borders (as well as the fort) – even though they will admittedly provide only token resistance at the mo’ (ii) IMHO, it adds to the case for re-declaring on Shaka sooner rather than later.

Talking of shyuhe, thanks for your post re: the granary, it’s good to learn! As it happens, your link and RRRashkolnikov’s findings motivated me to take a look at the workings of the granary in much more detail, given that the article I posted earlier this thread made it clear that the best time to whip a granary is when the food bin is half full (and which I advocated doing, d’oh!) With the research now done, I’ll write up my findings in an article on the strategy articles forum (so as not to disrupt the flow of Shafi’s thread), in about two weeks time (in the meantime, RL is a little hectic!), which will hopefully resolve the confusion surrounding the issue. Thanks again for the heads up!

As always Shafi, I look forward to reading the next round.

 

[Shafi]

You should attack the Zulu capital. You have already invested heavily in military. You might as well use it. Without the capital the gem city will be swallowed up in
Zulu culture. And if you take the capital he may capitulate.

I agree. I took a look at your save and was pretty surprised you were hesitant to move on. Your stack looked pretty solid and if it took multiple rounds to get the gem city, a huge proportion of his forces will have been wiped out by now.

I don't know much - have to cheat to win on Noble unless it's just a praet romp - but that was my impression. Granted you'll have culture problems with the capital, too, but at least the gem city will be able to breathe.

Also, it looks like Napoleon is spamming knights? Scary.

The basic problem is seige guys, the Zulu capital has walls / a castle + cultural defenses which means with the current seige i have got, my stack has to hang around their city for a few turns, my attacking units dont significantly outnumber the defenders and with reinforcements pouing in from other cities + new units being built and ambush attacks from enemy cats + x bows etc causing damage while we hang around in the open, it was too much of a gamble, i had to pull out at that point. If one of our spies had survived and pulled off a city revolt mission we would have taken ulundi ....

We have done well so far, and i did not think it wothwhile to risk everything on that one last attempt by trying to rush things, the gem city will be practically useless until we take their capital and Bulawayo, so yes it is a high priority that we hit them hard and quickly. What we will need is a lot of seige.

@ lg - Thank you as always mate . I will sit down this evening summarise what you have said (like i always do actually) and then play the next round.

 

[Shafi]

Just make sure Nappy doesn't backstab you by picking up Shaka as a vassal and declaring on you. And even if he does, you have elephants so he can't do much damage.

I have budhissm in one of my newly captured cities, so maybe i will convert to bushissm immeadiately to try and improve relations with Nappy. I sure hope he's preparing to take on Shaka, i could use the help .

 

[Shafi]

2 decent sites and a 3rd one under cultural pressure isn't a bad result though. I would worry, you're still looking good to win this without too much trouble.

Careful .... you maybe overestimating my abilities

Seriously though - i agree, in a decent position should be able to win from here. And that's the whole reason i decided to play online, cos playing this game on my own i have a feeling i would have abandoned it at some point in pursuit of an easier victory like that NC-JC game .

However, i was just trying to figure out what was going in my head whn i was deciding on my tech path, during the last round .... and i think the answer is "NOTHING" , i just seemed to have zoned out, maybe i was too tired i dont know, either way in order to make sure some sanity prevails what should be our preferred techs from here onwards and what do we target to pick up from Liberelism?
Shall we try to beeline Steel? I like cannons

I think i need some help getting our tech path on track please ....

 

[learner gamer]

A few more thoughts:

Converting to Buddhism to boost relations with Nappy (post liberalism) is a great idea – if I understand dj anion’s guide correctly, see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=236346, Nappy won’t DoW at friendly.

As part of the reshuffle of troops from your inner cities, it might be worthwhile moving a couple of chariots to Nobamba. Although one might be sacrificial (depends how Shaka counters your attack), they could pillage the road on the hill N of the city (this unit is the potential sacrifice), and the other (eg. your GG) could stay with your main stack, pillaging the rice to Nobamba’s W and then the road on that tile, all of which would slow any counter by Shaka and give you a turn or two more to reinforce the city if needed.

In Moscow, stop working the 4H 1C mine and 3F 1C farm to work (i) the cottage / hamlet 2S of the city and (ii) the 1F 3H mine or the watermill (which should be cottaged as noted previously.) Longer term, don’t forget to reassign the two cottages 1S, 1SE and 1E, 1SE of the city (both currently worked by Rostov) to Moscow.

I mentioned previously that Nodwengu should be cottaged. Having looked at the save again, it might be worthwhile adding a watermill or two to the city instead.

To maximise your chances of taking Ulundi, it is vital to have plenty of spies to send the city into revolt (so your siege can instead maximise collateral damage to the city’s defenders). With this in mind, consider using both (instead of just either) Rostov and St Pete’s to produce spies (after St Pete’s has finished its treb.)

Re: the tech path. This is very tricky and not helped by my error (many apologies for which) in the previous post which stated that a GE would bulb steel if you avoid replacement parts. This is incorrect – you would in fact need to avoid printing press (or banking if you get printing press) to enable a GE to bulb steel.

In order to help on this one, let’s look at the alternative tech paths (the numbers in brackets indicate the turns currently needed to research the tech): BTW, if I’ve gotten anything wrong, please feel free to correct me (or indeed add to the list of pros and cons). All such advice will only help (i) Shafi’s game and (ii) me to learn.

To get cuirassiers: liberalism (11) – nationalism (0) as free tech – guilds (7) – gunpowder (10) – literature (2) – music (5) – military tradition (16). Total = 51 turns.

Pros as per the previous post. Also nabs literature for the epics.

Cons: Shaka already has engineering and access to pikes.

Cuirassiers are very vulnerable to rifles (which I note below that Nappy may get from spamming and upgrading musketeers.)

To get rifles: liberalism (11) – printing press (0) as free tech – guilds (7) – gunpowder (10) – banking (6) – replacement parts (0) if you pop a GE from St Pete’s – rifling (19). Total = 53 turns.

Pros: Looking at your save, printing press will give you an automatic 14 commerce (i) without erecting buildings (handy since you’re pumping military for war) and (ii) potentially shortening the time taken by this route. This will only grow given your use of cottages.

If you pop a GE from St Pete’s and bulb replacement parts, the time taken is only 2 more turns than cuirassiers.

Rifles obsolete walls and castle defence bonuses.

Gives you a natural counter to any rifles Nappy gets should he spam and upgrade musketeers.

Cons: You lose the extra MP of cuirassiers (but have higher base strength). This can be countered in the event you have to fight a defensive war by roads in your territory.

To get cannons: liberalism (11) - printing press (0) as free tech – guilds (7) – gunpowder (10) – chemistry (14) – steel (0) if you pop a GE from St Pete’s. Total = 42 turns.

Pros: As noted above (see rifles), printing press will give you an automatic 14 commerce (i) without erecting buildings (handy since you’re pumping military for war) and (ii) potentially shortening the time taken by this route. This will only grow given your use of cottages.

If you pop a GE from St Pete’s and bulb steel, the time taken is actually less than for either rifles or cuirassiers.

Grants access to next best siege unit, automatically addressing your current handicap in war and sets you up very well for war against either Shaka or Nappy.

Grants access to the ironworks.

Cons: My understanding is that cannons do not obsolete walls or castles like rifles do. (NB: this is a key assumption, so if I'm wrong, please let me know.)

As with rifles, you lose the extra MP of cuirassiers but this can be countered in the event you have to fight a defensive war by roads in your territory.

Need to stay away from banking (perhaps denting the economy) to bulb steel.

Note: in all these, I’ve assumed for simplicity that a GE bulbs all of steel or replacement parts. To the extent that a GE bulbs only part of each tech, the above are under-estimates of the time research will take.

The first observation that follows from the above IMHO is how major your choice of free tech from liberalism is (assuming you get it of course). It effectively determines your military path for some time to come.

The second observation is the commonality of liberalism, guilds and gunpowder to each of these paths. To me, it means that is your immediate tech path right there.

The third observation is how important generating a GE could be in St Pete’s to giving you cannons or rifles very early. Of course, if you generate a great prophet, having to tech replacement parts en route to rifling adds 14 turns to this path, making it 65 turns; 14 more than cuirassiers. Similarly, generating a great prophet and having to tech steel would add 22 turns (making 64 turns in total); 13 more than cuirassiers but one less than rifling. Of course, a great prophet inspired golden age will help shorten all your tech paths.

On balance, I’d say that choosing printing press from liberalism is actually probably better than astronomy or nationalism (the latter of which I mentioned in my earlier post.) By automatically giving you extra commerce (without having to build infrastructure), it enables you to keep focussed on building military (and spies) for an earlier DoW on Shaka. The extra commerce will also help offset the extra unit supply / maintenance costs incurred during the war.

Post gunpowder, I’d say it depends on how your war with Shaka has progressed. Assuming you’ve taken Ulundi by then, I’d lean heavily towards the cannons (especially given how early a GE could grant you steel.) If however, you haven’t taken Ulundi by that point, I’d humbly submit that the ability of rifles to obsolete Ulundi's wall and castle defences would be a better choice. (NB: That said, if I was wrong earlier and cannons do indeed obsolete these defenses, cannons remain the obvious choice even if Ulundi remains untaken.)

I’d love to know what everyone else thinks.

 

[Shafi]

Thank you very much!!! Now since this does seem like an important decision point, i actually am going to delay the next round a little bit and see if we can get a few more opinions ...

BTW - how did you calculate the number of turns required for each tech? is it by dividing the beakers required by the current beaker output?

Also i always thought Rifling obsoletes castles & walls for the person resarching the tech not the AI, so i actually think until Shaka researches rifling he will benefit from castles + walls --- could someone clarify as this maybe important to the decision that needs to be made.

 

[Insanity_X]

whether or not his castles/walls are there, your gunpowder units ignore them. however, he'l still get the eps and culture provided by the castle. I think.

 

[learner gamer]

BTW - how did you calculate the number of turns required for each tech? is it by dividing the beakers required by the current beaker output?

Nothing so complex - I simply pulled up the technology adviser, hovered my mouse over each tech in turn and read the display. (As a result therefore, these estimates also don't include discounts for researching pre-requisite techs.) Simple I know, but then I tend to be that way.

 

[shyuhe]

You can get gunpowder through education and not guilds.

 

[learner gamer]

You can get gunpowder through education and not guilds.

D'oh! My bad....a settler level error really, wouldn't believe I play on monarch would you?

That means the path to cuirassiers and cannons are each shortened by the 7 turns I assumed guilds would take to research. Since rifling requires replacement parts (which in turn needs banking that comes only via guilds), it is unchanged.

In sum therefore, we now have:

cuirassiers: 44 turns
rifles: 53 turns (GE bulbs replacement parts), 67 otherwise
cannons: 35 turns (GE bulbs steel), 57 turns otherwise

(NB: the eagle eyed will also note teching rifles absent a GE bulb has risen to 67 from 65. This is because 53+14=67, not 65 as typed in the earlier post. It's one of those days. )

The immediate tech path (common to all the above) becomes liberalism - pick a free tech - gunpowder (i.e. absent guilds). Thereafter, the choice remains as before.

Any and all other errors will be corrected (i) after I get my specs cleaned so I can read the tech screen properly and (ii) in this post, to hide their scale.

shyuhe, since this is getting to be a habit (I make a post, you correct it ), care to make a comment re: the effect of gunpowder on walls and castles?

 

[shyuhe]

Gunpowder lets you ignore the defense bonuses of walls and castles. Also, I wasn't aware that steel can be bulbed in its entirety with a GE. You'd have to have a pretty big empire for that to work. I don't think a GE can even completely bulb replaceable parts.

@Shafi - Nappy is not preparing against anyone in your last screenshot. But he can still declare at pleased (including picking up a vassal to declare on you). The easiest way out is to ask him for a small sum of gold (<10 gold) to get forced peace while you go destroy Shaka.