JJ01-Moving up to Monarch

[rddc05]

Well, the advice on drafting came in a bit too late. I'm not very familiar with the strategy but it didn't seem like a great idea. For one thing, we are drafting musketmen, which are OK, but not exactly the force you need to take over China. For another, drafting was giving +3 unhappies per draft for 10 turns. I though it was just one unhappy, maybe an undocumented change in the patch.

Like I said, I'm not the greatest warmonger, so the invasion probably wasn't 100% efficient. We took Guangzhou with no casualties, but Qin's knights took out a couple of units the next turn. Some pikes would have come in very handy. Currently bombarding Beijing, it should be ready for taking within two turns. I recommend taking the defenses down to 0, it will only take two more bombards with our promoted cat. War weariness is definitely taking its toll, however. We will be lucky if we can take Shanghai before having to sue for peace.

Finished steel and upgraded a catapult, which is currently on a galley. Set research to Astronomy but there are no beakers in it. Replaceable parts is available. Elizabeth settled in the tiny space where the Chinese city was, there wasn't really much I could do about it.

Here's a screenie and the save, have at it and have fun!

 

[Kikinit]

Nice rddc. . We now have a foothold on their continent and here's hoping we can get his capital without too many casualties so we can keep war weariness under control. Did you pump culture up?

I too am interested in hearing the working behind mutineer's drafting rush. I have used it a few time when I get to infantry as they are very useful, but a lot of the time before that the troops aren't the most powerful and give you a huge hit in unhappiness. I guess that can be countered with culture to a certain extent but it is worth the big hit in population?

I haven't loaded the save up yet and will do so in a while.

I'll post the roster to keep everybody in the know.

Roster
- Jeejeep -- UP (pound those chinese! )
- rddc05 -- Just played (swap with JeeJeep)
- TomPW -- On deck
- Kikinit
- Mutineer
- Bigfoot
.

 

[Mutineer]

Drafting allwasy cost 3 happy for 1 draft. You need to start to look on happiness as a resource. I was thinking I allredy demonstrated it with whipping.
That reason I try to stick theater/colliseum in all cities, as with 20% culture slider they give + 5 happiness.
Muskets are universal trops and we just need meat to take hits, insted of using cavalry everywhere.

 

[Mutineer]

ohh, about research.
Astronomy is absoutly useless to as. WE are not going to invide anyone oversea, our next target should be Rysvelt anyway.

So, we should beeline to rifling.

About drafting. One can read stuped comments in forums that mushketeer as useless because they have very small window. This is not true at all, there window can be made exprimessly big.

Using liberalism slingshot fieled by GS and getting Nationalist out of it and taking gunpowder next can one have universal drafted army of musketeers very early on. If that case you need only 2 trops, cats and musketeers.

I went this way in one of my game, I think I have them about 200AD and finally replased them with riffles at 1650 somehting.
Ofcouse I was plaing Peter and did not have access to hourses. Nearest hourses were very long distance and 2 AI away, so I used this stratedy.

Ofcouse my own research was very slow and I even did not have Mashinery or compass or guilds. BY GS help me to jump there veyr early.
No way I was able to produce any resonable amount of 90 shields muskets. The only thin that I produced naturally were cats.

 

[rddc05]

Yeah, I suppose the key is to have theatres/colloseums in all the draft cities. Have a look at the save and you will see that our fishing villages are at the hap. limit. I guess we should not have let them grow so large. I think I drafted 3 muskets and there were two existing when I got the save, so we weren't too far from our target.

We have some grenadiers over there, but mostly cav, for sure. We shall see how they hold up.

Another reason to wait on Astronomy: we have Colossus. Replaceable parts for sure.

 

[jeejeep]

Got it, some questions about the save.
1. Reading the comments I asssumed we were in nationhood, but in the save it says we are in bueracracy

2. It looks like our primary war objective is Beijing, but after that where? The city north of Guangzhou might be nice to relieve cultural pressure. there is also a city to the south of beijing with only a pikeman and a longbowman in it. what is our objective in this war? Are we trying to take all their cities, take some and raze some, or will we take/raze some and then ask for peace?
If we are razing, which cities should we raze and which should we keep?

3. One a smaller note, is there a reason Djenne is producing a pikeman?

4. We have trade oppurtunities. anyone have ideas on what we should be trading. View attachment 124517

 

[Mutineer]

1). Well, remember we can switch eveyr 5 turns.
2). Our war objective is take over all chinese land and it cities.
I did not see any bad placed cities.
3) I noticed very strange production orders. WE definatly want to produce naturally only cannons, grenadeers and cavalry.
4). Only really profitable opportunity is with Khan, but it is astronomy.
from one point of view Astronomy will cancel our colosys.
From other, potentially astronomy will let as trade oversea and increase our resource acsess by trade. Economy would be nice to have, but i do not want to feed leader. So, economy from elisabet and astronomy from Khan.
Probaby acievable by selling nationalism+divine rights. We do not have monopoly on this 2 tech.

I wuld say, that is you trade any, trade bouth, because othewize oppnents trade them between themself and we will loose trade opportunity.

I think say goodbye to collosys and go ahead. But economy is a priority.

I noticed a lot of drafting opportunities nad by some reason all our cats dissapear.
Bad, produce cannons.

 

[jeejeep]

Okay, I will play now.
Preturn objectives:
1. Take as many Chinese cities as possible.
2. Draft some musketmen
3. Trade for astronomy and Economics

 

[jeejeep]

I played only 7 turns as they were very long.

Trades: Nationalism-Economics(elizabeth) Nationalism+gold-astronomy(Khan)

War: took Beijing first, then the northern city, then Hangzhou(in the south). Qin never really put up a fight and I could have taken much more if we had had more than two siege weapons. I drafted in Djenn, Madras, Lahore, and I think another city. Pretty much the whole country is on war production. Because of this we have some health and happyness issues. Qin has a frigate which is roaming around. You can avoid it by moving the galleys between Guangzhou and Elizabeth's city. The next war target should probably be Shanghai. We should be able to roll over the rest of the country with some upcoming shipments of cannons.

Research: Replaceable Parts-Rifling. 40% research with culture at 20%

Other: On my first turn there were nine workers sitting in a stack, so I had them go road everything. Qin offered peace for 80 gold after I took Beijing, but I said no. a great artist was born in Delhi. I was going to send him to China to get some culture over there.

View attachment 124550View attachment 124551View attachment 124552View attachment 124553

View attachment 124554

 

[Mutineer]

I am at work and can not look at save, but I suspect that war wareness will increase. I would suggest if we will get to many unhappy to increase cultural slider.

In one of my game at the end of war I had it at 60%.

 

[jeejeep]

We have two or three unhappy cities, could turn up the culture. I forgot to mention we can now build the Ironworks, Forbidden Palace, and globe theater.

 

[Bigfoot]

I haven't checked this in a while, looks like we have made good progress. Nice work guys! .

 

[TomPW]

Jeejeep - do you want to finish your turnset? If not, I can play the next ten turns tommorow - hopefully finish off China!

Tom

 

[jeejeep]

Play yours. We need a new perspective in this war. I've had enough fighting.

 

[TomPW]

Hey guys, I played 11 turns so that I could be sure to finish Qin.

Pre turn, I notice that Qin has a settler party on our continent, so I dispatch a cavelry to take care of that.

Between turns we are attacked by a longbow, but our cavalry wins easily and continues to advance on china.

1: I'm simply moving troops forward and preparing to lay siege to his cities.
2: Qin loses the settler party I mentioned above (attacked one of the two escort units last turn too). Another thing that is bothering me is his frigate, its just sunk our caravel and is prowling round looking menacing. I decide to upgrade two of our galleys in Oxford to Frigates as defence. In addition the push into China's heartland continues.
IBT: One of our frigates is sunk despite the coastal defence bonus, and Qin's figate being damaged!
3: I remove the offending frigate with our sencond one, the great artist creates a great work in Beijiing.
4: I begin the palace (not forbidden, real) in Timbuktu. We've talked about moving our capital for a while now, so I decide to do it.
Nanjing falls for the loss of one cavalry unit.
5: Culture to 30% - somehow Xian suvives, we lost two battles, one when we had a 93.something chance, and another at 91.1%. Either way, they have one unit left and we have enough cavalry to make sure it falls next turn.
6: Xian falls. (See, that Oracle isn't obsolete yet )
7: Rifling comes in. I decide that Corpration is next, since I don't want to put my foot in it by obsoleting the GL). Culture slider to 40%. Shanghai falls. Qin has nothing to offer us if we were to sue for peace, so I press on to his last city.
8: St Louis has an Indian revolt, hopefully we'll get a flip there before too long.
9: Roosevelt cancels open boarders.
10: This was very interesting, check out the pictures at the end of the post, because I know that I'd find this hard to believe it somebody told me this happened. I agree to cancel deals with Roosy to appease Kublia (who I gave 400 gold to a few turns before as well), but only because Roosy has cancelled deals with us. Three seperate deals are cancelled, the turn before, open borders went. I assumed that was it. We did still have silk for ten gold per turn, but that was all that was left when I agreed to Kublia's demand (don't worry, the pictures show Roosy cancelling the deals).
11: Qin is dead. Chengdu has fallen, while the victorious Indian army celebrates their victory in the bars of China, back home we get a Great Scientist.

A very enjoyable turnset.

If I had more time I'd arrange these throughout the post. As it is I have to go out and wanted to get the report posted. You can see Qin's settler party, its destruction, a couple of captures and the Roosy/Kublia diplomatic incident I mentioned.

Qin's insulting settler.

The death of its escort, and the ignomy of being forced into becoming a worker.

The siege of Nanjing comes to a satisfactory conclusion.

0.6??? The luckiest defender in the world can only delay the capture of Xian.

A diplomatic incident.

He started it!

You can hardly blame me for listening to Kublai then can you Roosy? After all, he shares his fruit and veg with us.



The save:View attachment 124784

 

[Kikinit]

Looks good Tom. Seems that the war went off without a hitch.

I'm up and pondering what's next for us then? I am at work so can't load the save but I guess we should be looking to continue to press our militaristic advantage on our next unfortunate neighbour whilst trying to balance the budget back home?

With Roosevelt cancelling all those deals, I wouldn't be surprised if he declared on us. He has a couple of cities in our backyard which are under a fair bit of cultural pressure and that can't be helping relations. He may only be holding back due to our power rating.
.

 

[Mutineer]

Our first priority right now is building our new land and prepare to war with Roosevelt.

He is more advance then chinise and have riffling. We would need more greens to take him on.
Do not forget to drop culture rate next turn when war wereness drop.
We need to confuse our new land. WE can continue to benefit from religious civics.

I am not sure which civic we are, but now we would not benefit from Burocracy, because our empire is big. Nationalism is now a natural choice.
Pach made it good for empires, as it is now no upkeep civic.

We probably should run orgonised religion for some economic building.
If St. Louis go to as, we should disband it, as it is useless city and our culture allredy cover that land.

 

[Kikinit]

Ok. Got it and playing now.
.

 

[Kikinit]

Hi guys. These turns I were just consolidating our empire and moving preparing ourselves for the next stage of war. I spent a bit of time with the workers chaining together farms and converting mines into windmills. There are a number of cities, especially the chinese ones, that are lacking enough food to work all the cottages or mines that have been built so I started to rectify this.

One of the chinese cities in particular had nearly every workable cell with a cottage on it but they all only produced 1 food. How in hell is it ever going to get big enough to work on the cottages? I chained some farms to this city and it's starting to grow a bit, but still needs more farms. We also can start building lumbermills in all those forests that we have saved. Lots for the workers to do now than just roading.

I revolted to Free Market for the trade routes and Organised Religion for the missionaries without monastaries + 25% building bonus as we are in a building phase.

Research & Culture sliders were reset. Culture was put back to 0 as the WW went away and research was upped to 70%. I can't recall which chinese city has the religious shrine but when it came out of revolt we went from -7gpt at 70% to a small deficit at 80%. Huge boost in our gpt from that one. Maybe that city should have wall street built. It should have banks, markets and grocers at the least. If it doesn't have some of them already.

Chengdu only came out of revolt very late in my turns and it's set onto Culture. Don't forget to change it back once it's borders pop. I wanted it's borders to pop fast to block the Americans. They have already settled a new city right down to the south of the old chinese lands. horsehockey site they chose so they can have it.

I only played 8 turns as I wanted to get us back to a sensible number and my son deserves some attention. No screenshots as there really isn't much to show from this set of turns.

Roster:
- Jeejeep
- rddc05
- TomPW
- Kikinit -- Just played
- Mutineer -- Up
- Bigfoot -- On deck

The save:

 

[Kikinit]

Forgot to say that Coorporation came in and I chose Steam Power and then Assembly Line to get us some infantry. I couldn't recall what was discussed but I would think that infantry is our best option to take out the Americans as we can draft an army together if we want.