I'm back for one game at least

M60A3TTS · Mar 31, 2020

I agree on the need for deals, but we are going to have gems on line very soon and would suggest patience until we get magnetism and that opens up ocean trade. That will greatly reduce our rep risk.

Pass on 16 unless he'll just trade it for our maps. No need to enrich him over a civ that I suspect isn't worth meeting. I suspect they're second to last in power above Shaka.

tjs282 · Mar 31, 2020

M60A3TTS said:
I agree on the need for deals, but we are going to have gems on line very soon and would suggest patience until we get magnetism and that opens up ocean trade. That will greatly reduce our rep risk.

Navigation has already opened the Oceans, that's why we can see those trades already.

The problem is trade routes going through straits (e.g. Gibraltar, Aden) or from landlocked Civs via coastal Civs' Harbours. I think I'm just going to have to scan the map really carefully to see who's safe to buy [stuff] from.

M60A3TTS said:
Pass on 16 unless he'll just trade it for our maps. No need to enrich him over a civ that I suspect isn't worth meeting. I suspect they're second to last in power above Shaka.

Our WMap plus a tiny bit of gold gets Contact and his TMap.

Out of curiosity, how do you feel about a war to end the Zulu (before someone else does)?

Not on my set, obviously, but as our first target?

M60A3TTS · Mar 31, 2020

You're right on the ocean tiles. Both navigation and Magnetism open ocean trade. I just assumed everyone's trade was going over sea routes since the oceans actually deny very little world trading as sea lanes are so abundant. Again my lack of play in such a long time rears its ugly head.

If you find a reasonable trade then go for it.

Yes, I am thinking Zulu as well in order to get more cracks at some MGLs before the serious fighting starts.But I do think galleons are indispensable for ocean movement as the most direct and therefore fastest route.

You don't have to start this on your set, but we should chop ourselves out a harbor on the West Coast so that we can park about 4 caravels there as our fledgling Pacific Squadron. Upgrade to galleons at the appropriate time and with about 8 settler pairs set up some Pacific Possessions.

Hiawatha's little visit shows we're on the right tech and build path. Clearly America's stature in the world will need a bit more buffing before the others know their rightful place.

As soon as Magellan's is decided, let's get Boston back on pre-build for Newton's.

tjs282 · Apr 2, 2020

EDITED to over-write previous post

Spoiler TurnLogDR :

Handover

Our core is somwhat more developed now. Since there wasn't much left for them to do near Boston, I joined most of your Forest Rangers back into adjacent towns, to bump our commerce/beakers (e.g. Washington could sustain Pop12 already, but was only at Pop9). There are still a few Workers near Washington/Bath for roading + mining Hills + Forests), and there are still plenty out on the fringes, so it seemed more efficient to dispose of the excess like this. All our core towns can easily make 10 SPT if we need some more Workers in a hurry, but Rails are still a fair way off...

Unis have been built in several of the core-towns, and several more will finish soon. Some towns (e.g. Denver) I left building Muskets -- most of those were sent south -- or ships (e.g. Bath, Dyetona), but I don't think we need any more boats at present, so I turned Dytona over to a Duct, and Bath could do with a Market + Uni. I disbanded most of our Galleys into builds-in-progress (e.g. Caravels or Harbours), but there are still a few to be disposed of, or exploring here and there.

I investigated Lux trade-routes, and the only 'safe' one I found at the time was buying Ivory from Izzie: although she had/has only one Harbour, her route doesn't go through any hostile waters. If Hiawatha builds a Harbour anywhere in west Africa, we could probably trade with him safely as well (if so inclined). Same goes for Brennus, if he ever gets round to building a Harbour at some point. But Monty's Wines will be taken from his cold dead hands...

ToG is due in 3T at a fair profit (but you can make extra on the last turn!). You could speed it up to 2T by bumping SCI% to 70%, but it's hopefully not necessary, since no-one else knows ToG yet (and given how fast we could have researched it, I think there's still a good chance that we'll get it first).

And we got Magellans!!!

However, the Wonder-cascade has not yet exhausted itself: Smiths, Shakes and Bachs are all now being built by various Civs, so our losing Newtons is still a possibility, if anyone gets ToG before their current Wonder-shields are wasted. But if that happens in the next 4-5T, our prebuild has only just under 100 shields in the box so far, so it can be rolled over painlessly to an ordinary Uni instead, with barely any loss on our shield-investment.

There is an incoming MWarrior near Albany. He's probably just exploring, but (if he makes you feel nervous) there are mil-units stacked units in Bath, which should be able to patrol along our border-roads to keep up with him/fight him off if need be.

vSwords moving through Central America are aimed at Leeds. They'll get there just as our deal with Lizz expires, and we'll be free to DoW her (if you wish to). Leeds shouldn't have more than 2 Spears at most, and will probably auto-raze. Swords can then (or instead) disperse to new tows along the SA coast.

There are also several Caravels' worth of units heading for/ arrived in Iceland. They are there to defend against possible Aztec aggressions, but if we don't need them for that, they can also (later) act as an advance party vs. Shaka. The Caravels can be sailed back to Bath for reloading/ upgrading, or disbanded into Rek's Harbour-build.

With respect to the next interturn:

Seattle looks like it will riot over the IBT, but it won't, because the nearby Slaves will hook it up first.

Santo Domingo is about to Settler-disband. Move it 1E to the Grass, or 1SW to the Hill and rebuild for a Fish: either way, the Dyes will stay hooked.

Our Gems should get hooked over the IBT (the closer one is actually already hooked, but then I realised it was still outside our borders)

There is also a Caravel with 2 Settlers near the Galapagos. I think we should aim to settle the northern two of these 3 spots (the third one will let us water those Plains before Electricity, for extra food when we have rails):

M60A3TTS · Apr 2, 2020

T0 (650AD) Pre-flight things look ok. 16 settlers in queue, 7 present. I decide to swap Theology to Izzy for Chivalry.

T1 (660AD) Not much. Santo Domingo abandons and settler to grassland 1E.

T2 (670AD) One turn from ToG, no one has it yet. Santo Domingo re-founded.

T3 (680AD) Treasury at 1108. ToG in, Magnetism in 5 at -43gpt. Boston now with Newton’s in 11.

Aztec builds Bachs in Teotihuacan, Bursa finishes Smiths. That leaves Shakespeare's @ 360 shields.

T4 (690AD) Merde. Guayyaquil riots. Pop 2 ingrates. IBT Aztecs get Shakes in Tlatelolco. Why is this highly militaristic civ building all these wonders? Fight someone, dammit! Truth is, I’ve never seen a game on a huge map like this where outside of our wars, the AI appears to be completely passive. There are almost no ruins on the map and all the cities and towns have the names of their native civ. Now with all of the prime real estate taken, it seems the AI would still rather settle ice and tundra settlements than fight. Puerto De Lomas and Camana founded.

IBT the English went before the Aztecs so they are still building Shakes in Canterbury. The cascade has broken everywhere else. A lot of folks got torched on failed wonders.

T5 (700AD) Newton’s in 8 and we will have it provided Liz doesn’t get ToG next turn. We demand banking and she says no. Fine, I’ll be back shortly with some friends.

T6 (710AD) Paramaribo riots. Another 2 popper. Grrr. Well Liz is another loser as her Shakespeare shields are tossed away. Short rush a rax in Iquitos for 92g. Will upgrade a group of vet swords next turn. An Aztec knight lurks NE of Albany.

T7(720AD) England learns ToG and starts NU. . I trade Ragnar ToG for Metallurgy and TM.

Then over to the Aztecs to get banking for ToG.

That leaves only dead-end techs on the trade board. NU should be safe because we’re due in 6 and only Liz is building it in Hastings. The Vikes and Aztecs will start next turn but aren’t going to be close. So now we have a choice to get MT and cav or go straight for steam. We can afford a run at steam, so I decide to take it. 1211g, -100gpt and 7 turns.

Physics, WM and furs to Brennus for horses.

We can build knights and plan to pick up MT before the deal expires so we can then upgrade to cav. The Navy puts in an order for four lead frigates in Washington, Norfolk, Bath and Montreal. The Army starts work on knights in Albany, Erie, Detroit, Philadelphia and Omaha.

Upgrade 5 swords to MI in Iquitos. A pair of galleys are broken up while Pride of Havana and Caribbean Queen upgrade to galleons in Dyetona. With a couple other upgrades, the treasury is at 941 and -96gpt.

T8 (730AD) Spot an Ottoman dye settlement west of Slamador. So now there are at least two foreign settlements in SA. Kamloops, Boa Vista, La Paz, Ayacucho and Cusco founded.

T9 (740AD) Ottomans are out of the MA with medicine as their free tech. Two turns ago he was down ToG and Magnetism to us and didn’t have Mil Trad. Now they do. England same, so their UU now in play. Vikings also with the techs.

Iroquois up Mil Trad.

Aztecs are on par with us.

We still have steam in the works, now in 5. Treasury 660g @ -103gpt. Newton’s in 4.

T10 (750AD) Naval forces now 2 frigates, 7 galleons, 2 caravels, 2 galleys, 1 curragh. Galleon “Pride of Havana” has two settlers in the Panama Canal that should be sent westwards. Two of our galleys are off the east coast of Germany. Our brave curragh continues to map the Southern Pacific. She has shallow waters off to the west, may be about to uncover new lands. I land the Trifecta with Sao Luis rioting at pop 1. Really !?!

7 settlers available and 19 in queue. I put in the three settlements on the SA west coast per the dotmap and the makings of a coastal highway in progress. More settlements like La Paz and Cusco are gradually surrounding Leeds. Canadian tundra in the Columbia, Alberta-Saskatchewan and Manitoba Regions are available for settlement, and I’m comfortable sending 3-4 of our settlers there each set.

Iro more aggressively settling in NA now.

Before we get into war with the Zulu we should think about what we need for continental defense. Rail priority should probably go Pan-American before Transcontinental as the Germans are no threat and the Celts low threat. We have muskets in most NA east coast cities and with the current group of knights building should provide for an adequate defense over the next 10 turns. For SA, we are going to be vulnerable for a while there, if we are going to press the Zulu war. We can’t get an invasion force on top of a viable SA defense until we have a lot of rail available for the latter. So once Washington finishes a couple more frigates and the other cities build theirs, we can look at more galleons and troops for the invasion force. Proposed landing at Hlobane first, then Bapedi. Pretty much can depend on a pointy stick and arrow defense as he doesn’t even have Lit. yet.

With steam in 4 we should get the two Boston hills tracked ASAP once the tech is in. We need that 25th uncorrupted shield for TO&E. As soon as NU is done then we can kick off another pre-build. Other rail priorities to enhance production include Omaha which is where we’ll build Hoover’s and Detroit, another major prod center. Then general rail strengthening of the core and connecting the cities by rail in the direction of the Panama Canal.

Once steam is in, we can then see what the market is for medicine and Mil Trad. In any case, Electricity should be next.

vmxa · Apr 2, 2020

Lurker:

One of my favorite parts of the game is the race to get rails, before a disaster hits.

tjs282 · Apr 3, 2020

Again, well done on the tech-trades :thumbsup:

Also good that Ozzie got Medicine, because that may save us having to research it ourselves. If he's doing the typical AI-thing here, he's likely now distracting himself with the Nationalism branch — so once we've got Electricity, we may be able to trade him Steam for Med, and then immediately begin SciMethod for ToE.

Agree with Hoovers in Omaha. But since the 'only' benefit of ToE (in CivIII) is the 2 free techs it provides, it can go in any town: it doesn't have to be Boston (which still needs a Uni!)

M60A3TTS said:
Before we get into war with the Zulu we should think about what we need for continental defense. Rail priority should probably go Pan-American before Transcontinental as the Germans are no threat and the Celts low threat.

Agree that railing south is more important than west right now. The Celts + Mongolians have still got all of Indonesia/Australia to Settle, so we won't need to worry about them landing on our west coasts for a long time yet. (And if they and the Mayans and Babs are in Alaska already, well, so what?)

SA will take a long time to fully develop (until we have RepParts!), so for now our Workers should just concentrate on getting one road finished through the middle (just continue the Gems-road SE, until it hits coast), and one road along each coast (which will also help deal with those annoying Pop2-riots), then close the circle across the Andes, between our two current southernmost towns.

Once we have Steam, those same road crews can work their way back along those roads (prioritising the coast-roads), railing (+ irrigating?) the clear tiles, and chopping + railing the vegetated tiles (quicker to do this than railing Forest/Jungle — and we need the tiles clear for food-production anyway), all the way back to Medellin. With a rail-loop in place (plus a shortcut down the middle, just in case Frigate-bombardment cuts the coastal link), we'll be able to defend that entire subcontinent using a much smaller total force of Knights/Cavs + Cannon than would be needed to garrison/ defend each city separately.

The Caribbean islands are a little more worrisome, but we can probably sail units back and forth from Florida/SA if necessary.

M60A3TTS said:
We have muskets in most NA east coast cities and with the current group of knights building should provide for an adequate defense over the next 10 turns. For SA, we are going to be vulnerable for a while there, if we are going to press the Zulu war.

If we can get the SA road/rail-loop built as described, then defending it shouldn't require a huge force. If we stationed 1 Musket per coastal town, then our total subcontinental defence force could be kept at just enough to repel, say, 3 Galleons' worth of invaders (12 units) per turn: 15-20 Cannon, 10-15 Knights/Cavs, plus 3-4 Muskets as backup, and maybe some Frigates (plus Privateers?) to bombard/ sink (/enslave?) the incoming ships.

So I'd be in favour of invading Zululand sooner rather than later, because I'd like to have that beachhead to Europe (re)built and secured (Walls + Barracks + Harbour(s)) well before we begin assaulting our first real mainland target (the Aztecs? Because Monty's always worth it!). So I'd like to see what we have available, and start sending Galleons of Knights + Muskets + Cannon to Rek/ Hlobane already (while they're crossing the Atlantic, we'll continue to build replacements/ reinforcements back home).

I also agree that we should aim to take Hlobane first (landing on one of the Forests), then land our troops in the Highlands near Bapedi (we can't unload Cannon directly onto Mountains, so I hope we'll get an Army from the assault on Hlobane, which will allow us to land everything we have on one of Bapedi's Hills instead).

Isandhlwana is going to be problematic though, because we won't be able to take it without Marines. So once Shaka's mainland towns have all fallen, we should maybe think about allying with Ragnar, and let him 'Zerk and raze that town for us: our Frigates can help out by redlining the defenders.

M60A3TTS said:
7 settlers available and 19 in queue. I put in the three settlements on the SA west coast per the dotmap and the makings of a coastal highway in progress. More settlements like La Paz and Cusco are gradually surrounding Leeds. Canadian tundra in the Columbia, Alberta-Saskatchewan and Manitoba Regions are available for settlement, and I’m comfortable sending 3-4 of our settlers there each set.

I agree that we should try to occupy every 1-tile island across the Pacific that we can reach before the AI-Civs do: that will make things much easier in the later stages, by depriving the AI of potential Palace-Jump sites that are unassailable before AmphWar/Marines. Columbia/Alaska is also fine for Settlement: all those Hills and Tundras are a long way from Washington, and good for nothing but Pop1-3 farms anyway. But as for the rest...

Apart from maybe one more town on that Tundra-corner between Erie and Billings, I think we shouldn't bother Settling Alberta/Manitoba at all. Because any towns we plant there will have little to no food for growth (except on the Hudson Bay, and even then, only with a Harbour), and hence produce very few shields/commerce.

But due to CivIII's corruption model, any additional towns planted at 3rd-4th ring distance from Washington will steal rank from (and thus increase corruption/waste in) all our already-developed and >50% productive Plains/Grass towns, from Mexico to Montana.

So I think we should ignore the Alberta—Newfoundland axis entirely, and any AI-towns in that area that we (need to) capture, e.g. to force a PT, can be (auto)razed or Worker-abandoned.

M60A3TTS · Apr 3, 2020

tjs282 said:
So I'd be in favour of invading Zululand sooner rather than later, because I'd like to have that beachhead to Europe (re)built and secured (Walls + Barracks + Harbour(s)) well before we begin assaulting our first real mainland target (the Aztecs? Because Monty's always worth it!). So I'd like to see what we have available, and start sending Galleons of Knights + Muskets + Cannon to Rek/ Hlobane already (while they're crossing the Atlantic, we'll continue to build replacements/ reinforcements back home).

If you want to send a frigate or two with 3-4 galleons to invade Hlobane right away, go for it. I will comment on the other items when I have some more time.

M60A3TTS · Apr 3, 2020

Don't forget that there are some eSwords by Bath and may be worth sending over to see if we can get a quicker MGL.

Keep an eye on the Celts. They're down ToG and Magnetism to us and don't have Mil Trad yet. If they get that next, we could make a trade there and start cav upgrades sooner. There is a trade we could take now, but I'm not in any hurry to do which would give us Mil Trad from Aztec for dyes, 58gpt and 200-something gold.

I deliberately have a few warrior builds in the southern SA towns. They are for fog busting/anti-barb action as our garrisons are not plentiful in the region. But you can still change the builds if you want.

tjs282 said:
Also good that Ozzie got Medicine, because that may save us having to research it ourselves. If he's doing the typical AI-thing here, he's likely now distracting himself with the Nationalism branch — so once we've got Electricity, we may be able to trade him Steam for Med, and then immediately begin SciMethod for ToE.

Agree with Hoovers in Omaha. But since the 'only' benefit of ToE (in CivIII) is the 2 free techs it provides, it can go in any town: it doesn't have to be Boston (which still needs a Uni!)
Agree that railing south is more important than west right now. The Celts + Mongolians have still got all of Indonesia/Australia to Settle, so we won't need to worry about them landing on our west coasts for a long time yet. (And if they and the Mayans and Babs are in Alaska already, well, so what?)

Boston will get its uni. I would still like it to do ToE first. The other high prod cities can keep cranking knights and boats for now.

tjs282 said:
Apart from maybe one more town on that Tundra-corner between Erie and Billings, I think we shouldn't bother Settling Alberta/Manitoba at all. Because any towns we plant there will have little to no food for growth (except on the Hudson Bay, and even then, only with a Harbour), and hence produce very few shields/commerce.

But due to CivIII's corruption model, any additional towns planted at 3rd-4th ring distance from Washington will steal rank from (and thus increase corruption/waste in) all our already-developed and >50% productive Plains/Grass towns, from Mexico to Montana.

So I think we should ignore the Alberta—Newfoundland axis entirely, and any AI-towns in that area that we (need to) capture, e.g. to force a PT, can be (auto)razed or Worker-abandoned.

That's fine, I want to just make sure we are on the same page here. We will leave Columbia on the buildable location list at a low/modest rate.

tjs282 · Apr 6, 2020

Spoiler TurnLogDR :

Handover:

We got Newtons!

As hoped/expected, we also got a monopoly on SteamPower, but a couple of turns into Electricity, Hiawatha showed up with a huge dollop of cash (plus Med + MilTrad), so I sold Steam to him. I then also scalped him for some Dyes, but he's continued to rake in more coin from somewhere (he hasn't sold Steam on yet, though!). I already finished Electricity as well (also a monopoly, I think?), and have just started researching SciMethod, which we will get in 4T at a small deficit.

Washington is currently building IronWorks either as a prebuild for ToE (IronWorks will also finish in 4T, so you'd need to switch it immediately during the same interturn when SciMeth comes in), or to speed up a ToE-build from scratch (your choice). Boston needed a Market for happies, and I started a Uni-build in there, which could be switched if you'd rather that it do ToE (I think Washington is a better prospect, though!). Omaha is Palace-building for Hoovers.

Other Core-towns are building ships + Cavs + Muskets, finishing Universities, or starting Barracks in preparation for unit-builds. Semi-core towns are building Courts + Markets for more happies: some of these jobs can/should probably be chopped later, when our thin-rail net is done. Boondocks-towns are building Cannons, Workers, Settlers, or Wealth, generally depending on what they were doing when I inherited them

Nearly all the native Workers which were scattered across the west, have now been turned around to start railing back east again -- I figured, since they were going that way anyway, they might as well do something useful in transit. As the stacks coalesce, the rail-jobs will speed up, and then they can all band together to rail south. We now have near-complete coast roads in SA, and Workers there have also started railing the easier tiles, and chopping Forest tiles (where there was a nearby build that would benefit).

(For simplicity, I've generally had the natives building rails, while the Slaves were left to do the less-important jobs)

I haven't planted many more towns on this set, although we have discovered and colonised Maui already (it had an accessible Fish, which Hawaii doesn't). Our Curragh has passed through the South Pacific Islands, and (I think) is now not far from where New Zealand ought to be. There are Galleons waiting in Baja California to load more Pacific Settlers/garrisons, and a few units already heading in that direction (not on GoTos, though!).

Save is below

M60A3TTS · Apr 7, 2020

Good set.

Your wonder builds are fine, I'll flip Washington to ToE as soon as SciMethod rolls in. I wanted Iron Works in Detroit anyways.

At the end of my turn 2, Hiawatha still doesn't have electricity, so if a 4 turn research minimum applies to the AI as well, we should have the needed shields to win the race to ToE. Our domestic advisor notes the Iroquois who have steam, lack coal and perhaps we should trade them some. :cringe:

I promise him that for the moment I will not send him to a lunatic asylum.

Against my better judgement, I went ahead with a landing at Bapedi. It went about as I expected as the force went in on the first turn and was immediately set upon. We lost two knights against five swords and an impi. I promptly evacuated the force on the following turn as it is facing destruction at the hands of many Zulu swords. We can't go into the Zulu mainland with a pike and musket as our only two defensive units. The Zulu have had the entire game to crank out piles of low strength units that can still get lucky. We're going to need a minimum of about a dozen muskets before trying this again. The main purpose of this early war has to include pulling down an MGL and our best chance in doing that is getting one of these muskets elite, then popping the MGL thereafter. I think your starting up additional rax builds was a prescient move, so as they complete I'll get more muskets going.

Agree on migrating workers gradually so improvement opportunities are not wasted. Omaha is getting the needed worker attention for Hoover's.

M60A3TTS · Apr 8, 2020

850 Pre-flight. Things look fine. I prefer Detroit for Iron Works so will adjust that presently.

860 (1) Pick up some gold from a GH in Hawaii. Land on Aztec mainland with some trepidation due to only two defensive units present.
IBT Zulu kill a pair of knights and lose 6 units with plenty more coming.

870 (2) Withdraw from Zulu mainland and will re-group at Hlobane. Just won't work with this weak force. Worker actions mainly

880 (3) Message pops that Ottomans and Aztecs are allied against Sumeria. I drop a galleon's worth of troops from America onto Hlobane region.

Put embassy in with Aztecs for 48g. Teno doing 34 spt. 9 muskets in garrison and now building rifles.

Sci Method in 1, geeks to taxmen. 4 turns left on Celt horse deal.

IBT- The English have decided they really don’t like us and join in the Zulu conflict.

Our helpless but now fortunately unladen galleon is sunk by a Man-O-War and so England starts its GA. Switch is made to ToE in Washington in 11 and Iron Works in Detroit in 9.

890 (4) Hoovers w/current prebuild in 16 in Omaha at 36spt. 70% sci, RP in 6, 806g, +23gpt. Frigates USS Constitution and Norfolk fire at reg MoW and frigate USS Congress sends her to the bottom. The galleons are offloaded by Hlobane and units spread out across the area. Another 3hp vet MoW is bearing southwest of our naval task force.

IBT Damaged vet MoW engages our elite galleon Horizon, takes damage from covering fire of our frigate and is sunk. Another vet MoW takes station NW of Ulundi.

900 (5) Frigates Constitution, Norfolk and Congress take the MoW off Ulundi down to 1hp and she goes down at the hands of President which takes 2hp damage. Nobody has electricity yet. Iroquois now follow the teachings from Das Kapital by one Karl Marx.

IBT England scores a major naval victory as her MoWs show up now in force off Hlobane. All four American frigates of the North Atlantic Squadron are lost along with a pair of galleons that result in 2-3 prizes while the English lose a single MoW. 1 elite and 3 vet MoWs rest off Hlobane while our remaining pair of galleons seek refuge in the city.

910AD (6) England’s prowess at sea is not matched by her defense of Leeds. A vet MI kills a reg rifleman, another MI takes out a reg spear while a third takes out a reg LB. We’ll take 57 gold and a tiki-torch party to Leeds. :devil:

Embassy opened with Babylon for 56 gold. We learn that they too are fighting Sumeria, apparently with knights.

That puts Sumeria up against 3 other parties. I decide to check on their capital Ur and discover it is now under new management, along with numerous surrounding establishments that are serving Hiawatha Ale. So Sumeria has been officially dog-piled. I ring Gilgamesh up to offer my condolences and further learn his city count that earlier stood at twenty is down to nine. That includes three Siberian settlements, one off the Indian continent, four more in the area of Sumatra and Java and an island far to the southeast of Madagascar. None exceed pop 4, so fair to say that even the Zulu at this point are far better off. It also puts Hiawatha and Temujin in close proximity to one another. We’ll see what, if anything, comes of that.

IBT The English, having decisively defeated the American squadron off Hlobane now have to decide what their next steps will be. Will they send a fleet against North America? That seems rather unlikely, as the rail network is now in from Bath to the Panama Canal and a cavalry and cannon reserve drawn up for North and Central American defense. A more attractive option would be to raid the highly vulnerable American coastal settlements along the east coast of South America. There are no American warships in the area and even a galleons-worth of cavalry delivered to one of the more remote locations could create havoc moving along the various jungle roads conveniently built by the Americans. Instead the Royal Navy will choose a third option at this time as they maintain five MoW off Hlobane and pound away at the luckless American galleons Horizon and Lake Huron with solid shot. As if to make a point, while the English frigates hammer away, up on the quarterdeck their band can be heard playing “Rule Britannia”. While all this is going on, back in the Western Hemisphere, the South Atlantic Squadron with frigates USS Chesapeake, Ranger and Galvados maintain station in safety just off Havana. The Second North Atlantic Squadron, with only USS Montreal and Potomac sit quietly in Boston Harbor awaiting additional reinforcement.

920AD (7) Railhead moves forward in SA

IBT Babylon and Celts sign peace treaty. Horse deal with Celts expire. He has a couple pair, so I’ll shop around. Of course then the Celts sign an embargo with England against us.

930AD (8) Worker actions are designed to bring SPT up among a number of cities while overcoming several hills along the SA middle road towards Iquito.

IBT- England decides to land two cavalry by Washington in an attempt perhaps of burning the White House?

A galleon and caravel are escorted by several MoW that forces Second North Atlantic Squadron to stay in the safe Boston Harbor. Meanwhile, seven MoW now are off Hlobane. Still nothing off SA

940AD (9) The two English cavalry are dispatched with cannon fire and our own cav. RP now in 1 as geeks again go to taxmen. Galveston riots. Grrr. :mad:

The main cities for unit production are about where they need to be for SPT now, so most available workers head for SA that aren’t already there.

IBT- England brings in the Babylonians against us. Whatever.

950AD (10) RP in and we have no rubber. Not a real issue though as a settler can snag a source with two rubber in 3 turns. South of Tacomazonia, settler Rubber Band Man heads for them.

Industrialization is not an issue in 5 turns but would be more of a challenge in 4. In any case, Hoover’s needs 10 more turns to complete. Military cities can produce a few artillery in the meantime. With Iron works and a free hand in picking tiles to work, Detroit can do 70 shields per turn. With a factory, hydro plant and Mil Academy, that should be an army every 3 turns.

Now that the English have made their point, they are willing to declare victory and make peace. They will also give us gold, to rebuild our shattered economy. That would leave Hammy in the lurch, how convenient. Since we can’t readily get at Shaka with Liz in the way, I take that peace offer for all her petty cash and TM.

With Sci Method fresh in our pocket, Hiawatha would give us some gold and gpt for the tech. Do I hand over a monopoly tech? He can’t get ToE now. Oh, I can’t resist, I’m a sucker for hard cold cash. Done. That’s a few upgrades.

With ToE, we could have it in 4, but to line us up for Atomic Theory we want to give Industrialization time to complete in 5. I went ahead and dropped the SPT in Washington to accommodate this. As soon as Industrialization comes in, we go for AT, ToE completes and we grab AT and Electronics with Hoovers then in 5 to kick off our GA.

Settlements came to a halt during my set. We were just overextended IMO and needed to close things up and that is now done. We have 9 settlers and 10 queued. You can kick that up again if you want as we have 25 workers queued in comparison.

I’ve started some 5-6 turn banks as pre-builds for some factories we can start with industrialization. We can build a couple muskets in Detroit then prebuild there as well. Instead, if you just want to build muskets and get them to Hlobane that’s ok too. But we should probably plan on invading with about 10 infantry, so may want to wait for rubber to be connected and upgrade before shipping them.

6,470 gold in the coffers @ -100 gpt. Don't say I never gave you anything. :groucho:

vmxa · Apr 8, 2020

Lurker:

Rubber Band Man, is that reference to The Spinners?

Frigates are the bane of larger maps. Though Dromon can be worse, but only Theo can build them, so not as bad.

M60A3TTS · Apr 8, 2020

vmxa said:
Lurker:

Rubber Band Man, is that reference to The Spinners?

Frigates are the bane of larger maps. Though Dromon can be worse, but only Theo can build them, so not as bad.

Yes it is. Maybe you should be on Jeopardy. :lol:

Naval warfare with frigates is like night combat with them having radar while you don't. Once aircraft can extend visual range, not nearly as bad.

vmxa · Apr 8, 2020

Lurker:
yeah, once you get bombers and have artillery, you start to get control of your shores.

Dwarven Zerker · Apr 8, 2020

Lurker:

Wondering why you keep using squadron to describe your navy. Shouldn't it be fleet instead?

Loving the game and write-ups! Hope to more games after this one.

M60A3TTS · Apr 8, 2020

Dwarven Zerker said:
Lurker:

Wondering why you keep using squadron to describe your navy. Shouldn't it be fleet instead?

Loving the game and write-ups! Hope to more games after this one.

Thanks for the kind words and welcome.

I don't consider a group of three or four frigates to qualify as a fleet, that's all it is really. Even today, small groups of ships can qualify as squadrons. Rest assured, in time there will be a US Pacific Fleet. In fact there may be several others.

M60A3TTS · Apr 8, 2020

Our galley Tropical Mist has charted several of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.

Farther west, Spanish and German outposts have been spotted.

vmxa · Apr 9, 2020

Lurker:
Rabaul and Bougainville some nasty Naval action in WW2 as well as the more famous Guadalcanal.

tjs282 · Apr 12, 2020

Hi all, just checking in to say I am playing my set, but have only had a little free time over the last couple of days. I got about 5T in yesterday, but there are a lot of Workers to manage now...

EDITED to add:

Spoiler TurnLogDR :

Handover

We built both ToE

... and Hoovers

... on schedule, and are now enjoying our GA.

Factories are up in most of our core-towns (Washington's will finish in 2T, unless you want to rush it), and we are building MilAcad in Omaha and Heroic Epic in Detroit (or we could build UniSuff in 8T, to waste yet more of the AI-Civs' Wonder-shields!).

From which you will gather correctly that we now also have at least 1 victorious Army!

I was getting 'inexplicable' WW during the early part of my set, which I decided (since I had suffered no Zulu-attacks, nor any Zulus on our territory) was most likely due to the units that we had on the Zulu-owned tiles near Hlobane. So I moved those units into Hlobane's radius instead. The WW went away, but this also left tiles free for Shaka to land units. He has duly been doing so, at a rate of 2 per turn, shipping from Ulundi (I watched them all heading down there!).

This allowed one of our eSwords to score a crucial victory: General Lee immediately built our first Army! I loaded the 2 Cavs into it that we'd already shipped over, and used it kill one of the subsequently landed Zulu Maces. In the meantime, I also sent several Galleons over towards the Zuluish Isles, shipping assorted reinforcements (Infs, Arty + Cavs), and I have been stacking newly built units in Boston (which can now build 1T-Galleons), so we should be able to eradicate the Zulus fairly soon, possibly even during your set.

(Alternatively, we could allow him to continue to land his excess units near Hlobane, until we're only dealing with his newly-built trickle -- which should help us once we're ready to invade him)

I sold Atomic Theory to Hiawatha and Lizz to drain their cash-reserves, and also to get us Nationalism and Communism (to allow us to use drafting, Policemen-Specialists and Police Stations). However, since Lizz still has 2 active Embargoes against us (with Brennus and Ragnar), we can't sell our Luxes to her (or any of them), so she's still getting a fairly healthy per-turn income from... somewhere.

I also bought Spices from Khan (as our 5th Lux, a snip at 110 GPT!) to allow us to reduce our LUX%-spending from 30% to 10%. A 6th Lux is not needed yet, but if WW goes up further, it may be necessary to bite that bullet, and fund Hiawatha via his Incense (even though this is a risky trade-route).

Most of the time spent during my set has gone towards continued (Settlement and) improvement of S.America. When coastal farms hit Pop2-3, I switched the new citizen(s) to a CivEng(s) to build fishing Harbours: these can then become Geeks/ Taxmen when the Harbours are done. Our most recent Settler just went offroad south of Rio Dinero, and should head further south to thwart the Otto Settler-pair which left Urfa about 5T back (and whose advance I blocked with Workers-on-Hills until we could secure Rio's Dyes ourselves):

The other 2 spots in this screenshot will close the territorial hole across the Pampas, and I've also left 3 obsolete mil-units stationed further north/ inland, where another 3 Settlers will bring the remainder of Amazonia completely under our control. And all without any Culture-buildings needed!

During the second half of my set, I started moving a large part of our native Worker-force back north to further improve our 1st- and 2nd-ring towns' shield-output. All flat unvegetated tiles in the core, and all the Hills have now been (mined and) railed, and I've also chopped some Forests into useful buildings (e.g. Billings and Dyetona's current Market-builds; please let these finish!). I did leave some Workers in SA, though, most of them to solo-road coastal Jungle and Forest, in preparation for stack-clearing once the core and semi-core are done (to everyone's satisfaction!).

I haven't done much Pacific Settlement though -- apart from Hawaii, which is now 4/5 colonised. We still 'need' one more Settler for Kauai, which could be built by one of the other islands (once their happy-Harbours are done!).

I'm back for one game at least

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Stone \ Cold / Fish

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Just one more turn Honey!

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