JB1 - Generic Random Deity

[Greebley]

Excellent work Kuningas

I got it. hope to play today

It sounds like I get to make several choices with all options being good.

For the Leader I guess there are 3 options.

1) Move the palace to Tientsin. I can't remember which city has our FP to judge this move. My guess is that this move would allow the cities in the NW to become "real" faster, but it might very well lower our total shields and gold rather than raise it.

2) Keeping the leader for TOE. The biggest problem here is that it may be a long time to wait. I wonder if it is premature to start a palace build now??? I am thinking this might be a good idea.

3) Get an army. The whole point would be to get at least 1 victory so as to increase our odds of a leader later.

My inclination is toward option 3 actually with a prebuild for TOE started in a town now. None of these grab me as "must have". Any further opinions on this topic?

As for the war, it is likely I will at least test the waters: re taking Ravenna.

 

[T_McC]

Our FP is in Susa. So the palace in Tientsin gives us an elliptical empire with the two foci close together. We would lose a little production in Beijing (from capital to tight 2nd ring to the FP), Canton and Ellipi. We gain in Perseopolis, Sidon, and the four cities west of Perseopolis. I would guess we would have a small temporary decrease of shields, but an immediate monetary gain. I suspect a loss of shields due to our western cities being improved for growth (much more irrigation than mines), while our eastern cities have been improved for shields.

On pre-building for ToE: Of all the deity games I've played, this is the one where I think there is the least need for ToE. Yeah, we're behind in tech now, but we are significantly larger than any of the AI. I think we have 25 cities, US has 6, England 5, Korea 9, Iro 8, Rome 9 --> 8. With all the wars going on, I think the tech pace will be slow enough that our economy can get us caught up fairly quickly. If we're thinking about further war [and I think we are ], we can have ToE or we can have 10 Cavs. But, since a pre-build has to be carried over many people's turns, it has to be a group decision. I vote no pre-build yet, we have too many pressing infrastructure needs and we will need to re-build our military.

I have two minor concerns with using the leader for an army. The first is that we don't have very many units, although an army is probably an easier way to get two wins from three cavs than using the units indivdually. The second is that at the moment I'm not sure we have 200 shields to spare for the Heroic Epic. We should be able to do that fairly soon, but for right now ...

So I guess I lean towards a palace jump, with saving the leader for ToE being by far the weakest choice.

 

[T_McC]

Hopefully Greebley hasn't started playing yet. If he did, oh well.

The proper choice for using the GL is heavily influenced by how you think the future of the game is going to play out. I see us going for a domination win, and probably getting there before tanks. If we capture Ravenna, we will control the vast majority of the (formerly) jungle tiles on the map. We will also have about 40% of the total land area under our control. I think this means it is very likely the other 5 civs will only have 2-3 rubber combined. There is a good chance we could achieve domination without ever having to face Infantry, regardless of where the AI civs get on the tech tree. If we are planning for this case, we really don't have to research any farther than RP and Industrialization (with Nationalism thrown in so we can mobilize). Our conquests would be Inf/Art/Cav combined arms groups, and done properly we really shouldn't lose many forces. (Cav charges against Rifles/Guerillas should be blowouts with artillery support) In this vision, we may not even research Sci.Meth, much less need ToE. I feel with this plan the proper use for the leader is a palace jump, in order to increase our economy/production (any newly conquered lands won't need to be productive to finish off a couple of the AI).

I don't think we will need an army to prosecute any future wars (Cav armies are useful against Infantry, though), and any further leaders would likely only go to form more armies. I suspect we won't be starting any war until we have some factories and can clearly out-produce the AI, so we may not have any other big-ticket needs to rush.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Greebley]

There are a lot of ways to play this position. My 1 1/2 year old son has been rather frustrating today. So my choice is based on my mood. Thus the fate of nations is determined by a toddler.


Uruk, Bactra switched to worker.

Chengdu, Arbela, Gordium switched to barracks

Beijing, Shanghai, Tatung switched to Cavalry

Tsingtao, Sidon, Anyang, Tarsus, Macao switched to Cannon.

Alot of the previous builds seemed based on the idea that the palace was going to move which I have decided not to do.

Army built. Cavalry in Nanking, Beijing, and Shanghai rushed to fill it. Antioch, Canton also rushed.

Decide raising Lux to 10% makes sense.

Note that some towns are still building harbors and Markets. Farther high corruption towns are not.

Hit space...

IBT: One of our Cavalry not in a town is amushed and killed.
Beijing, Nanking, Antioch, Shanghai, Canton: Cavalry->Cavalry
Arbela:Barracks->Worker
Ellipi: Harbor->Cavalry
Bactra: resister suppressed & revolts even though it is balanced in terms of happiness??? Odd. I wonder how that can happen.
Uruk: Worker->Worker

660 AD:
Get the army win killing a rifleman intruder
Cav vs injured rifleman wins.
Cav vs Cav wins
Elite Cav vs injured Cav wins
I have a town with a single taxman/scientist. I switch science to Democracy on one scientist. Don't let this stop you from researching anything real.

Rush Market in Tientsin. It needs the happiness badly.

IBT: England lands a cavalry. I forgot to make peace.
Tientsin: Market->Cavalry
Xinjian: Market->Aquaduct

670 AD: Troop movement. Rush Cavalry in Canton. Make peace with England getting small change and world map.

IBT: All quiet on the Eastern front.
Tsingtao: Cannon->Cannon
Gordium: Barracks->Cannon
Canton: Cavalry->Cavalry
Akkad: Barracks->Cannon
Sidon: Cannon->Cannon
Chengdu: Barracks->Cavalry
Accidentally let Tatung riot.

680 AD: Bombard Ravenna doing a hp to an elite Rifle
Cavalry vs Rifelman loses
Cavalry vs Rifleman loses
Cavalry vs injured Rifleman wins
Elite cavalry vs injured Rifleman wins and takes town.

IBT: Cavalry kills pike.
Arbela:Worker->Worker
Bactra:Worker->Worker

690 AD: Bombard cavalry to 1 hp and kill with an elite unit (it was on a mountain).
Rush Cavalry in Beijing, and Persepolis
Rush Cannon in Anyang, and Tarsus

IBT:
Beijing, Shanghai, Suza, and Persepolis: Cavalry->Cavalry
Tarsus, Anyang: Cannon->worker

700 AD: Move troops onward. Upgrade pike that is near the front line.
Rush a Cavalry in Nanking

IBT: Korea and Rome Make peace
Nanking builds a Cavalry

710 AD: Troops are outside Pisae

IBT: Renegotiate fur deal.
Arbela:Worker->Worker
Tsiango: Cannon->Cannon

720 AD: Bombard Pisae to size 6.
Army kills rifleman
Cav vs rifle retreats
Cav vs rifle (barely) wins
Elite Cavalry vs injured Rifle wins.
Elite Cavalry vs Cavalry wins and takes the town.

IBT: Cavalry vs Cavalry barely kills us.
Bactra: Worker->Worker

730 AD:
Antium:
Army vs Rifle wins
Cavalry vs Rifle retreats
Cavalry vs Rifle retreats
Cavalry vs Rifle wins
Cavalry vs injured rifle loses (it was elite too)
Cavalry vs injured rifle wins and premotes to elite
Cavalry vs Cavalry loses
Cavalry vs Cavalry wins and takes Antium.

A med inf kills a 1 hp Cavalry

I accidentally hit the space bar a few times which means some units lose their move. This is not good as my defense of Pisae depended on moving them. I also cannot kill one of the Cavalry with 1hp.

Decide to jump into the industrial age buy the 2 needed techs for 97 gpt from Korea (Also defenses on the Korean border are a tad weak - if they grab Canton it will really cost them).

IBT: The 1 hp Cavalry kills the Med Inf and a healthy 1 takes Pisae.

740 AD: Cavalry vs Cavalry to take back Pisae wins.
Hurry Cavalry in Nanking, Beijing, Chendu, Antioch, Persopolis

Hey! I didn't know that. My army attacks and pillages twice in 1 turn. Cool!

IBT: A bowman causes a Cavalry to retreat
Beijing, Persepolis, Nanking, Susa, Antioch, Ellipi, Canton, Chengdu: Cavalry->Cavalry
Arbela:Worker->Worker
Tarsus Riots - oops

750 AD:
Change Tatung to a Market. It is getting pretty unhappy.
Elite Musket vs Bowman wins.
Pillaging and bombarding the "back door" to Pisae is complete. This included a Saltpeter and Iron - Checking Diplo they were Romes ONLY Salt and Iron. No more cavalry for rome.

My thoughts is to hurt Rome until they are willing to give us Industrial techs. They can only make Riflemen and we got just a few Cavalry (23) and a cavalry army.

I may have gone overboard on the Military. Our core is much the same as it was previously. We are industrial but have no industrial techs.

On the other hand, the window of opportunity of the "pre-infantry" years has been exploited to its fullest.

TMcC, you get to decide on the extent of the war. I would at least continue it until Rome is willing to pay big in tech for peace. They deserve it for previous transgressions.

Sanitation is known. There are several size 13+ cities. The Iroquois are the largest.

No wonders are being built so no industrialization yet.

I upped our worker count for the coming of steam power. We might want to buy it?

Domination might not be a bad way to go If the Romans fall you may want to consider America and England as well.

The Save

 

[JustBen]

Well. I'm impressed. Considering I was trying to figure out how much of our western provinces we could afford losing 20 turns ago, I'm very impressed.

TMcC's analysis is probably correct; there's no need to wait for Tanks to wrap this one up. Replaceable Parts would be very, very nice, so any future tech buys should take us in that direction (is Industrialization a prerequisite? Pretend like it is.). Even if we could build Tanks, it would still probably be quicker to use the 3-movement of our Cavalry forces to conquer the world.

A 20% pangea should be a snap to score domination on. It'll be tougher with these Hosptial-powered cities springing up, but we were gonna burn those down anyway.

Roster:
JustBen (on deck)
Darkness
Kuningas
Greebley
T_McC (up next)

 

[T_McC]

JB01 - 750 AD

My first thoughts are Wow, have we made progress. My second thoughts are Oh, are we thin. Every city we capture from here is a 1/1 without a palace jump, and unless Rome is eliminated they are all at severe flip risk. But if we do eliminate Rome, we won't be able to extort tech, and will be 5-6 IA technologies behind the other civs. So Caesar has to stay. I have to assume Rome will be a really tough nut to crack, and given that Antium is on its doorstep, we have to plan for a flip. We have 3 empty core cities, and the front line is quite a way from our core. We are at max WW, running 10% lux to keep our people happy, and are are paying out 1/2 of our 352 gpt surplus.

Why is Wang annoyed with us? Oh, he made peace with Caesar. Militarily we are horrifically thin on defense, so if Korea gets uppity it could get real ugly, real fast. If I risk our entire cavalry force, I can probably take Rome, which has a lot of nice wonders. But it would be extremely difficult to hold against flip. If I run a proper seige, I have to assume Antium is going to flip, so it is dicey to try a 6-7 turn military operation. We are two turns from Virconium. My decision is to prosecute the war for two more turns, capture Virconium, and make peace. I'll take what I can get from Caesar and fall back to a defensible line, doing my best to close the last window of opportunity the AI has to prosecute an offensive war against us.

750 AD (0)
Renewing our lux deal with Korea costs an extra 46 gpt. (The price of being large).

IT - Tyre flips to Romans. This seals my decision to end this war. If a size 3 city with 1 Roman citizen flips, I have to assume we cannot hold anything in Caesar's core.

760 AD (1)
Kill two Roman Longbows leaderfishing, no leader. Pull troops out of Antium, to recapture in case of flip.

770 AD (2)
Renew lux deal with Iroquois (for extra 20 gpt). See some Roman Cavalry.

Recapture Tyre. Capture Virconium. Throw a little party on the retreat from Antium, a "last one out burn the mother to the ground" party. Abandon Antium {It was a 1/1 city for us, but would have been a real good one for Caesar}

Peace with Rome, we give 17 gpt, they give Steam Power. So we got a ~100 gpt discount on Steam. It was a tremendous run, but I felt we were just too thin militarily to blitz the Roman core, and if we had to lay siege to the Roman cities, the war might go on for another 20 turns. Fall back to a 3-city front line, and push infrastructure.

Cycle through our cities, swapping many military builds to infrastructure. Reduce lux tax to 0%, gaining 59 gpt. [Now I wish I hadn't bought the lux from the Iros, or at least read my own preamble ]

We have three coal. Susa (our FP) switches to Iron Works. (I'd have bet money Ravenna was the Iron Works site, but sometimes things just work out.) Shuffle nets an add'l 7 gpt. Will now starve Roman citizens out of our cities, and start the railnet.

780 AD (3)
Rome kicks our units out. Much resistance ends. I'm still starving Romans.

790 AD (4)
Iroquois and Korea MA vs. Rome. More resistance ends. Starting to get workers better organized for rails.

800 AD (5)
Nothing that interesting. We can supply America with Coal and Horses. I held off the deal, since combined they were worth ~30 gpt. I think we are the only potential suppliers, so we can use this when we are ready to buy a tech. Virconium and Tyre hit the magic size of 1, start temples.

810 AD (6)
Koreans pillage a coal in neutral territory. Ravenna goes to size 1. Set lone scientist research to Nationalism. No idea whether it will come in before the game ends, but you never know.

820 AD (7)
Shanghai completes our first bank. Pompeii falls to the Koreans. Pisae to size 1.

830 AD (8)
Bactra to size 1.

840 AD (9)
Nothing exciting.

850 AD (10)
The military railnet essentially completes. Shanghai musket --> Heroic Epic (highly vetoable).

I spent very little money rushing things, I leave Ben with 1714 gold, 215 gpt. Enjoy the Iron Works, and the beginning of the infrastructure completing. I did not MM the cities before saving the game.

Calm Between the Storms

 

[JustBen]

I gots it; I've been yearning for some peacetime since Rome declared on you, T. I'll post sometime before Sunday night; regardless of how much weekend is left when I do so, we'll wait for Darkness before moving on.

 

[T_McC]

The bad news is: How much damage do you have to do to an AI to get them to cough up an IA tech? Caesar lost about 6-8 cities, and still wouldn't hand over anything good for free. [Although he did concede ~2000 gold]

The good news is: With the military railnet complete, and the terrain around our frontline cities, I think we are now unattackable. The AI either has to go amphibious, or stop short of our cities on a land-based sneak attack. I figure 20-30 turns of infrastructure/rearming and we can go back on the offensive. When we do go on the attack we should bring plenty of settlers, as I fear most of the AI population will be meeting a fiery death. [I think if you exclude the Palace and the HG, we have about 500 culture as a civilization ] (Cultureless Conquerors Redux!)

Just a heads up to Ben: Since Caesar has been fighting for so long, we might get lucky and be able to pull a 2-fer with him. Even though you will likely be building almost entirely infrastructure, I think your trading is going to determine who we go on the offensive against.

 

[Greebley]

I would definitely build the heroic epic. I got a goodly number of elite victories but no GL. We will want the heroic epic for the next war.

I was really curious which way you were going to go with this game, TMcC. Eliminating the Romans, Americans, then English would have been an interesting gambit to try, but would mean remaining very thin on infrastructure which could hurt us.

One thing you could have tried is to mass a lot of cavalry outside of Rome's capitol and then gone for peace. Large numbers of troops threatening a city/capitol seems to make peace worth more. I am not quite sure how much however (I have mostly tried this a lot earlier in the game).

The iron works in Susa is really nice. That is our highest shield producing city. Maybe we should start a prebuild for TOE after the iron works is complete. We will want to start that soon or we won't get it.

Note to next player:
We can trade steam power for medicine straight up with England. Seems well worth doing.

There is also a 2fer available as Rome doesn't have electricity.

Edit: It might also be worth placing a settler in the old Antium spot. We have the possibility of grabbing Romes coal.

A settler N of the coal just E of Canton would also grab that one. It is in our land now but won't be when Korea expands. This would be more to keep them from trading it than anything else. I think Korea is the real threat in terms of competition and research.

Edit2: Interesting - Universal sufferage is availabe but noone is building it?
Odd. Good for us though as the Cascade would go to TOE.

 

[T_McC]

Originally posted by Greebley
I would definitely build the heroic epic. I got a goodly number of elite victories but no GL. We will want the heroic epic for the next war.

Agreed we should build the Heroic Epic. Veto was suggested for where to build it. Maybe we want two muskets and a cav from Shanghai, and let Susa (Iron Works) go Bank --> Heroic Epic in the same turns. It was more a statement of "no obvious next build" in Shanghai.

Originally posted by Greebley
I was really curious which way you were going to go with this game, TMcC. Eliminating the Romans, Americans, then English would have been an interesting gambit to try, but would mean remaining very thin on infrastructure which could hurt us.

Gambit is the correct word. From your turnlog and the save I noticed our entire treasury was being used each turn to rush units. It was working, but a couple of problems were going to arise: (1) For as long as we were at war with Rome, I thought we needed all 8 luxuries. Since we got so much larger in the intervening turns, I knew that would cost us (I think it ended up being an extra 66 gpt for the two deals, and now we're overhappy ) (2) Steam was ~120 gpt from Korea. If we needed to buy the luxuries, we couldn't buy steam. We couldn't up the lux tax to buy steam, since we didn't have much of a nest egg in the treasury. Without rails, the front was going to get continually farther from our core. We may have 3x as many cities as the AI, but we were not outproducing them without rush-buying. [With the Deity discount, each AI had the equivalent of 10-12 cities, which is about how many productive cities we have. And they have factories.] And rush-buying was going to be more difficult as the war continued. Any further territory we gained would contribute nothing to our economy. I am not in any way criticizing your play, you did a great job, I'm just explaining my thought process.

Militarily I could have continued the war with Rome. It would have had to be a raze-and-replace campaign, since we couldn't jump the Roman capital far away from our conquests. In the core, I was figuring 4-6 vet rifles/city. With cav production slowed these were going to have to be seiges, and given the cultural borders of Roman cities we could only attack ~1 city every 3 turns due to having to move the cannons. I anticipated no help from the Americans, they've already had ~30 turns and haven't budged from their border. So we could have eliminated Caesar, but it would have probably taken until the end of Ben's turn.

Any attack on the Americans would have been the same slow seige. If the RNG gods were with us, we could have built up our cav force over time. But I felt the most likely outcome was for production to struggle to keep up with losses. Without rails the lag between production and combat would have prolonged the war ever further. By the time we finished off the Romans, the Americans were very likely to have RP (rubber or not is a different question). [Side note: I think I saw Korean Infantry on my turn.]

So I saw the following as my options:
(a) Continue the war with Rome to elimination, capturing cities as I went. This was a loser, as I would have had to re-capture flipped cities and gotten nothing from the peace. Plus it was spotting the other AI another 20 turns where we don't develop our economy.
(b) War with Rome until they only had 1 city, doing a lot of raze and replace. Could have gained some land, and may have been able to extract two techs for peace. [After the damage we inflicted, he wouldn't even give one for free ] Again, problem was spotting the other AI 20 undeveloped turns.
(c) War with Rome, immediately moving to war with US, hoping to transition to war with England. Bluntly, this was the only way we could lose the game. Our economy was such that we couldn't control the Alliance cascade after the fall of Rome. We had less than 1 unit/city in our productive core. Pre-rails that is a recipe for disaster. (Post rails its not such a great idea either). The Koreans would have only needed a stack of 6 cavs and some RNG luck to devastate us. Oh, and almost all of our offensive forces would have been farther from our core than our opponents would be!
(d) Cut a deal with Rome and fall back. In real-life warfare it is possible to out run your supply lines, and the results are usually not pretty. I felt we were just about at that point. The only thing we had left to gain from the Roman war was unproductive land, and possibly a tech for peace.

By choosing (d), we have a military rail-net, and our economy should perk up to the point where we can buy a second tech (for cash) sooner than the Roman war would have ended. We are also now almost 100% secure against invasion. In 20-30 turns, we can turn the steamroller back on, and its all-war, all the time.

Originally posted by Greebley
One thing you could have tried is to mass a lot of cavalry outside of Rome's capitol and then gone for peace. Large numbers of troops threatening a city/capitol seems to make peace worth more. I am not quite sure how much however (I have mostly tried this a lot earlier in the game).

I've never expressly tried this. May have been worth a few gpt on the peace treaty.

 

[Greebley]

Ya, I agree with your points (which is why I did use the word Gambit ). I think Rome would have been eliminated a bit faster than you state though maybe with more loss of Cavalry than we could afford.

To me the biggest reason not to try the gambit is the fact that you emphasized - we can build rails which greatly strengthens our nation. The biggest downside is that when we do fight it will be against infantry instead of riflemen.

Edit: I am thinking you chose the right thing to do (taking the sure win over the iffy one), but am really curious how it would play out the other way. Maybe someday I will play it out and see.

 

[JustBen]

AD 850 (0)
England offers Medicine and pocket change for our Steam Power. I'll bite. It looks like the Bad Guys are closer to ToE than I'd expected; I'll put priority on getting Susa set for a prebuild (probably wishful thinking). Industrialization has made the rounds, but no one is building Universal Suffrage (huh?). We have some seriously over-fooded cities, but that's something that can't be fixed until the rails are laid down more fully. Nanking needs a Bank more than a Temple. Macao needs a Courthouse more than a Temple. Tech steals will run us around 2500. We don't have that kind of cash right now, and if we did I wouldn't spend it. I've got a wicked itch for that Heroic Epic, but with no other cities free to build units, I grit my teeth and switch Shanghai to Musketman.

AD 860 (1)
Gordium Temple > Market
Uruk Worker > Worker (corrupt town)
Hangchow Granary > Market
I spend this turn shaving time off of the construction of Banks. America will sell us Electricity for a bunch of resources, 1900, and 19 gpt. We can broker this to Rome for a discount on Industrialization. I find the offer too tempting to pass up (especially since it makes both Scientific Method and Replaceable Parts visible). Korea, Iroquois, and USA (the last 3 "real" powers) have Rep. Parts, but no one has SciMethod yet. Thus it turns out that all my careful MMing for Banks was actually done for Factories (except for Antioch, which has about 40 commerce and 10 shields). Wicked cool.

AD 870 (2)
Arbela Temple > Worker
The Corporation appears in Korea. I'm glad to see that RepParts seems to have wearied them of the Low Road. Our Workers continue the process of dragging China into the industrial age, largely at the expense of developements in the annexed territories to the northeast.

AD 880 (3)
Susa IRON WORKS > Factory (possible prebuild for ToE, depending on how the AIs research)
Shanghai Musket > Factory
Susa gets railed/mined until its Factory is due in 4. I can't do any better than that, so the rest of its railing is delayed in favor of other Factory sites being prepped. Most of our Factory sites will want to do their Banks when they finish, so I'm not anticipating a big move to military production in the immediate future.

IT: Ravenna flips to the Romans, taking a pile of units with it. *sigh* This is a really awful town to flip, since suddely Pisae, Viroconium, Tyre, and Gordium have big cultural pressure on them.

AD 890 (4)
Arbela Worker > Courthouse (oops; didn't notice this one already had an Aqueduct)
Replaceable Parts has made the rounds amongst the "real" powers, but it'll cost our whole economy to buy it. No hurry; I'm saving the cash for Scientific Method. I'm not sure how best to deal with the Ravenna Problem -- basically, I can either abandon each threatened city, rush its Temple, or heavily garrison it. Gordium is a no-brainer; its Temple is already done and it'll expand soon. Pisae is where our Army is, and I'm not sure I want to risk it being flipped to death. I think about this one overnight, and decide that I'm willing to gamble 400 gold (rushing Temples in Pisae and Tyre, the most threatened) on keeping a pair of towns. I know they can push Ravenna back after they expand. Nevertheless, I start marching our army the homelands. I also decide at this point to switch Tientsin (our #2 shield producer, with 160 stockpiled) to a US prebuild in case ToE shows up before Susa is ready for it (I want a power plant running there ASAP).

AD 900 (5)
Tatung Cannon > Factory
Pisae Temple > Worker
Tyre Temple > Courthouse
Anyang Worker > Worker
Palace expands. A horde of Workers descend upon Tienstin in response to the prebuild plan initiated last turn. I decide to go ahead and let England have Electricity, since having Democracy "looks cool".

AD 910 (6)
Tsingtao Aqueduct > Settler
Akkad Market > Worker
Changdu Granary > Settler
I decide to set a few of our low-population cities onto Settler building, even if you may think "Aque > Settler" is a little odd. I'm trying shave turns off of collective industrialization rather than any specific city's Factory (except Susa, of course), so we're going to see lots of Factories close together, while my turns will be pretty quiet. By the way, Korean Cavalry is getting really close to Ravenna; it looks like the culture push won't be much of a problem after all.

IT: Hiawatha scrubs our Furs fr Dyes & Incense; I let it die. Korea takes Ravenna; cutltural pressure is off of our annexed territory.

AD 920 (7)
Susa Factory > Coal Plant (due in 2)
Akkad Worker > Aqueduct
Workers zipping all over the map. Hiawatha and Wang Kon suddenly show up with Scientific Method. Danger! Danger! Looking at production times, Susa can outrun any cities with a "Factory prebuild" by at least a factor of 2, so the US in Tientsin gets scrubbed in favor of a Factory (5 shields + 28 spt wasted) and Susa's Coal Plant plans get scrapped in favor of US -- I don't want to buy SciMeth until we actually have a need for it -- maybe America will buy it and get the price down. We can afford it easily right now, though.

IT: England and America make peace.

AD 930 (8)
Xinjian Temple > Granary
Antioch Bank > Settler (there's a lot of extra food here)
Tientsin Factory > Coal Plant
Having finished optimizing Tatung for shields, I finally come to the conclusion that it's probably not quite time for a Factory there; it gets swapped to a Courthouse. I think better of my decision to hold off on Scientific Method, and decide to try to broker. After shipping a bunch of luxuries to Hiawatha and emptying our treasury, we only pay 55 gpt, leaving us around 220. I'd hoped to wheedle something out of Rome, but Nationalism is just too overpriced. We end up shipping Abe 66 gpt for Replaceable Parts. Hooray! Theory of Evolution is due in 6; I go ahead and cancel the Nationalism gambit so we don't get and forget to get Hoover Dam. We have 3 rubbers.

AD 940 (9)
Tsingtao Settler > Courthouse
Canton Factory > Heroic Epic (due in 6)
Pollution strikes Susa! Yay! (Time on ToE is unafftected.) My Temple gambit towns expand their borders. Because I'm a scrub, of course I did my tech deals after my Worker turns in 930, so this turn I get to reorganize all the Worker crews. There's some open land between Pisae and Hispalis, so I send a Settler pair up to dig into the jungle out there. They won't be in a position to settle until Darkness's turns, so the precise placement I leave to him.

AD 950 (10)
Beijing Factory > Bank
Ellipi Factory > Bank
Chengdu Settler > Factory
More toiling in the fields. Nothing exciting.

Summary: The Republic of China has embraced the Industrial Revolution, but our financial system is not good. We still have +144 gpt but only a handful of Banks. Most of our cities that have completed Factories were set to Banks (in lieu of Coal Plants) in anticipation of the Hoover Dam, which is pending. I have no prebuild set for it, since Susa will probably do that job best after ToE completes in 4. Speaking of which, barring a leader we're guaranteed that wonder since the AIs _still_ have not started ToE or US. I'm not too concerned about US right now (possibly an error, but definitely not a big one); there are several large-ish projects that could be switched over if you so desire. Even though very little has changed in our position, I've gone ahead and attached a pic of our empire so that you can get an impression of the production queues without loading up the save.

Notes for Darkness:
A 20-turn deal with Korea has just run its course -- we gave Incense and 68 gpt in exchange for Wines and Ivory. Korea is probably going to cancel after you click next turn. This is the only deal we have with Korea right now. Geographically speaking, Korea is our most probably next victim. It would be nice to let our deals with Wang Kon quietly run out so we can smash him at our leisure. Here's the catch: only 1 other luxury is available for trade, Hiawatha's Furs. If you decide to let Korea's deal run out, cancel it yourself before you finish the "inherited turn" and set up a deal with Hiawatha so you don't get any surprise disorders. If you decide to stick with Korea's luxuries, I'm sure we'll be fine. I've produced absolutely no RepParts units due to the Factory/Bank push, and at 100 gold a pop we're just too poor to be upgrading our Cannon just yet.

|China| > |Korea| + |Iroquois| + |UK| + |USA|

Roster:
JustBen
Darkness (up next)
Kuningas (on deck)
Greebley
T_McC

 

[JustBen]

Here's why I got so spooked by Ravenna:

And here's what China looks like in the middle of the Glorious Revolution:

 

[Greebley]

OUr economy is looking very strong now. Amazing what rails and factories can do for you.

Some really minor points of things I noticed

There is a settler asleep in our capitol. I feel we should use it in the E to grab those resources near Rome I think we have enough time before we attack Korea to use it that way.

The jungle square with coal would be a good worker project. It could go from a 1 food 2 shield to 2 food 4 shield with a bit of love.

I think grabbing the junk techs from england might not be a bad idea. England is never going to be a threat so who cares if she gets a tech. Its true we don't need any of them, but I would hate to build a boat and try to take a "shortcut" only to then find out we can't cross ocean. Since it doesn't really cost anything having navigation means I don't have to worry about it (even though I will probably never actually have use for it). You can get all 3 for a single tech. Economics also offers a minor benefit by making wealth more worthwhile.

On upgrades, the shift-U upgrade of our pikemen was 720, of our muskets was 720, of our cannons was 1040 (cannon upgrade cost is actually 80). Musket to Infantry was relatively cheap. We could do 5 of them with the cash we currently have.

Is Tientsin really going to get use out of its coal plant to justify one? Even with a coal plant it is faster to build Hoover Dam in Susa than in Tientsin (one can MM Susa to build hoover in 9 turns if you want). I think a bank would be better. The iron works in our FP city is REALLY powerful.

 

[JustBen]

The more I thought about what I have here at the end of my turn, the less happy I was about them. I still like the Coal Plant in Tientsin -- after it finishes, Tientsin should be set to Universal Suffrage.

All the Banks should be vetoed. When we finish ToE, we'll have all the tech/cash we'll need for the rest of the game. The entire economy can be devoted to Cavalry, Artillery, Infantry, and Settlers. We should be able to take over two thirds of the world like that. If everything goes perfectly I shouldn't even have to play again; if I do, it'll be my last round.

I've been obnoxiously optimistic this whole game, but this time I'm right. Our economy (both GNP and production) was #1 in the world before the Factory push. There's no need to belabor this game. Darkness may or may not feel ready to declare war, but Kuningas should definitely shred the Koreans. It's all an exercise in Artillery use from here out.

 

[Darkness]

I'm very impressed with our progress against the Romans!

OK, I'll play this one tonight and see what I can do about getting ToE, Hoover and US, and also try to buildup some for a war in Korea (and maybe even start some...

JB: Thanks for the heads-up on the luxury deals!

 

[T_McC]

I have a few thoughts on the save:

@Greebley - Magnetism also enables travel over ocean squares. Our primary use for Navigation is Explorers, but I don't see us needing to do much pillaging.

I disagree with Ben on the vetoing the banks. We have plenty of units left to upgrade, and if we're going for domination we'll have to rush plenty of temples. In short, cash is always good. We should also anticipate using the lux tax during our upcoming wars. The Korean luxuries are rather far into their empire. Each click on the lux slider is worth ~70 gpt.

We don't have to be in a hurry to start the next war. Everybody but Rome and England have RP, so we won't catch the bigger AI without Infantry. There is plenty of time before tanks hit the scene, so the opposing militaries aren't going to get any better. That and our military isn't that strong right now, at least to attack Korea.

I do agree that after ToE/Hoover, we don't need any more technology. But we can still use plenty of cash, and I wouldn't count on any of the AI having a lot of money/gpt to give us for tech, hence we shoud keep building banks. [Edit: The Iros have a bunch, at least on this turn.] One other point: when we get Atomic Theory, trade it to someone for Nationalism. I think we are going to want to mobilize. The neat thing is we can mobilize before declaring war on someone (which I think is a bug, but ), and then smack someone down with a lot of raze-and-replace. The peace/extinction declaration allows us to demobilize, rush temples in the new cities, wait one turn and re-mobilize.

Unless I misunderstand what Universal Suffrage does, it's a waste of time. I believe it gives one content face from WW in each city, which is rather lame (a police station would give 3 for a size 12 city). If I'm correct about the effects there are a lot better uses for 800 shields (like 5 cavs/5 artillery, or 9 Infantry) The denial factor isn't that critical, I think we are going to kill an AI a turn starting with Kuningas and Korea.

Agree on Korea as the next target, geographic proximity is the only real consideration from here on out. When we lose the Korean lux we should look into buying Iro furs. [We don't have to attack the Iro if we are going for domination] Any deals for lux from here on out should be our gpt for their lux, no need to give any post-Hospital AI any happy factors.

On a completely different note, why am I not surprised to see Rubber in the city radius of Ravenna? I know what has been publicly stated about the mathematics of flips, but my personal experience makes me believe that there is a hidden "screw-you" factor that dramatically increases the odds of a city with a resource flipping away from the human. It has just happened too many times, with too unlikely a probability for me to believe otherwise.

 

[Greebley]

I have also heard that it only makes one person happy. I haven't built it since {edit: US that is}

Thats good to know about navigation/magnetism. I think I knew that at one point, but had forgotten.

I agree with TMcC on the usefulness of banks. We have 2480+ gold worth of upgrades. Its probably closer to 3000 - that is for upgrades to infantry and radar artillary. Pikemen are pretty useless for anything but suppressing resistance.

We also may be able to trade tech for luxuries.

 

[T_McC]

I had another couple of thoughts.

We shouldn't be bashful about cutting road connections in our (neutral?, not sure how we're playing this game) territory that would otherwise like Ravenna to the Korean core. No point giving them another rubber to trade, particularly to the otherwise rubber-less Americans. I'm not looking at the game as I write this, so I can't say which (if any) tiles we can pillage without hurting ourselves at the same time.

If we are going to mobilize, it may be worthwhile to build the Military Academy in Susa. [After Hoover] During mobilization it will pull >100 shields a turn, and can produce 4-turn armies. Probably isn't necessary, but at least something to consider.

 

[JustBen]

@T: Military Academy and 4-turn armies are cool, but 1-turn Cavalry are cooler (cf. your argument against Suffrage); I'd rather be doing that with Susa. You're probably right about US; we'll save it in case we need a Leader sink later on.