JOE-05 - The Crusades

[mice]

Got it. Plenty going on there. I need some votes on declaring war on Mehemed.

It is unacceptable to have his city on our land, but I think it's a decision we should make as a team.

Spiral Minaret ? Can we build this purely Muslim structure? I think it's a funny act of defiance to build it and we should try for it. A Christian Minaret.

The GG really needs to get to work. He has been crouching for three turnsets. I'll send him to Lyon/Orleans(?) for an academy unless anyone has any other ideas for him.

Ideas for the GS?
How about settled somewhere.


I disagree with all the specialists in Rome. They can work commerce tiles and leave the great person spawning to our GPcity, Pisae.

Also Arpinium(renamed at end of post),not Arpinum can be an awesome gP farm or better yet a Globe draft city.

It is ideally located to run galleons with drafted rifles over to the new continent.




OK, role play mode : News came to the emperor that although the Egyptians were not entirely destroyed, the war was won and the true faith had won the day.

It also became clear that the lack of iron in the Egyptian empire meant that knights and crossbows could not be deployed against our army. Thousands of lives would have been lost had the Egyptians had iron, and that iron was pillaged by one lone brave horse archer under the command of the great Knight Phillip du Plassis (known to his friends as 'Rince').

In honour of this brave horse archer who was killed soon after near the city of Arpinium, the city will be renamed HorseArcherton.

 

[JesusOnEez]

I'm all for taking the city out, but decided to await a team consensus...culture should hit that city pretty bad eventually, and it'll probably turn, but razing it just seems the right thing to do...we can declare peace until we're good and ready for the "proper" war.

 

[Rince]

Dear Monsieur de Payen

The invasion of our holy land by the infidels is a clear provocation and I demand immediate action.
As for your idea of building this spiral monument I would say that we should use any possibility to show the greatness of our people and our faith to the world.
Under my reign I sent a general (forgot his name) to Orleans to help train fresh units for the great crusade.
Maybe you could send the new general to Lyons then, where recruitment is strong and the instructors overworked.

Yours,

Phillippe du Plaissis

 

[mice]

Vote counted Phillippe de Plaissis.


1628.

In the save I'm looking at Hatty has capitulated to Fred. Bright side, she has converted to Christianity. Half the world is now Christian.

Peter is annoyed and a big power graph leader.

We can invade soon with the number of Galleons we have. Land on Liz's land and attack Mehemed from there. Relationship of Liz to Mehemed is safe. she will host our invasion. I didnt check but she hopefully has closed borders to both Mehem and Peter. We can retreat to her land if need be.

Mehemed will have Jannisarys if not rifles.

If Peter attacks we need to be able to repel a landing party. Knights, crossbows, pikes.

Tech decision, steel for cannons or rep-part to rifling for rifles.

Cannons are the aggressive choice but I think we need to b a bit defensive here because we could get Peter and Mehemed on our doorstep.

If we can draft rifles we can repel their attacks and carry on launching our attack form England.

We have 22 cities, booming cottages and military builds. If we play it carefully we will beat Mehemed , and Peter. We need Liz on side (even though she's Buddhist)

 

[JesusOnEez]

We can always convert her for the extra cash! Take not of any of her cities that have Islam though...we'll have to declare war on her sooner or later if she had to raze them.

Aren't we saving the GG for an Academy for when Education arrives? We may not get another one before Education.

Shame about Hatty capitulating to our bestest friend, means we can't wipe her out, but at least we got 90% of her land...Freddy will be small fry once our new, bigger empire builds up steam and some Egyptian cities start being worthwhile.

 

[mice]

Looking at the other continent, it is perfectly configured for us.

All Mehemed's cities are Islam, so all must be razed.

Liz has none. The only other muslim city is in Peter's land. He can wait.

Liz has closed borders with Mehemed and Peter. We can sit on the border and attack Mehemed's city with immunity from attack. We heal faster in allies cities, and with the medic 3 GG we will be able to start hurting Mehemed sooner than if we had to do a beachhead landing. In this case, even our trebs and knights will be able to damage his rifles.Of course we can upgrade our city raiders to grens.

I would like to know Cosmichail's take on the tech choice as well as others. Rifles, cannons or cavalry?

 

[Cosmichail]

I'd be for cannons myself since grens/cannons are great. The only thing with rifles is you loose the ability to build raider grens. Better to have the cavalry for now with the grens and cannons until we are satisfied that we have enough raider units.

Personally I avoid rifling for a while and usually go for railroad and use Machine gunners for defense. It's just nice to have those CR3 grennies when taking cities.

 

[mice]

How about drafted rifles to repel the cossack attack we may get ? I'm thinking defensively here. OTOH we are in a pretty good position to think aggressively.

Ive put a couple of turns into R parts so I'll switch out and maybe we can get it in trade.

 

[mice]

1628

Move our veterans to PiRam to get promoted. Build a few Galleons.

I decide to watch the Muslim city to learn more about their fiendish ways before sending them to hell. We can build our fleet and send it safely to England before declaring on this unsuspecting victim.

Turn 1 1631
More of the same
Swapped the Forbidden palace to Tours so that Globe can go in HorseArcherton. Lost 50 hammers but it's worth it because we will probably need a rifle draft city.

Turn 2 1634
Missionaries arrive and convert. Hatty has Democracy, emancipation.

Turn 3 1637.
Loading up galleons with knights, and some trebs, promoting CIII maces to grens.

Turn4 1640
More of the same.

Turn 5 1643
More promotions and loading up. Will send trebs over and we can build cannons. It will take too long to wait for steel and then promote our trebs. The grens can do the job with treb support

Turn6 1646
More loading and promoting ,converting

Turn 7 1649
Same as above. Mehed now has a rifle in that little city on our land. We can still take it easily

Turn 8 1652
Christianity fails in PiRameses. Get 11 gpt from Peter for incense, 6gpt from Hatty for clams. All helps with the war effort.


Turn 9 1655.
7 Galleons loaded. 7 trebs, 6 knights , 7 well promoted Grens. 1 frigate..

turn 10 1658
Carry on builds. Fleet stays put to await new general.

Vra I recommend landing in England. We can hit the first and second cities on the border with complete immunity. We have to raze them, and it may be better to just leave the land for Liz's culture. We may no need a city over there at all for a while. All Liz's cities are buddhist so we dont have to war with her at all.

Role play mode.

Hugh de Payen doesn't step out of his tent. No war today, might as well sleep in. Later on, he steps out of his tent , and takes a deep in breath.

"Ah I love the smell of burning Egyptian in the morning" he comments to his trusty steed.

He thinks to himself,
not much of that smell left now. And crusading isn't what it used to be. Not so many Knights now, mostly these grenadiers. Still must keep up with the times. And the heathen has new 'rifles'. I wonder what effect they will have on my knights?

He looked upon the fleet in Pi-Ramesses harbour and it filled his heart with pride. We're ready. Finally we can show the heathen what happens when you worship false gods. Let slip the dogs of war.

But, now the reins must be passed to .... Jacques de Molay . Lucky blighter.

Cosmichail - Black Knight - on deck
Rince - Philippe de Plaissis
Jesusoneez - Knights of the Realm (King Arthur)
Mice - Hugh de Payen - The First Grand Master of the Knights Templar - just played
Vra379971 - Jacques de Molay - Grand Master of the Knights Templar -UP

 

[Cosmichail]

Excellent work mice we are indeed ready for our Crusade to the infidel's lands. Looks like a French crusade lead by King Arthur and the Black Knight hiding his true identity.

Geez with all those French names I feel like I'm in Quebec. Canada's most cultured province with shops reminscent of Europe and lots of beautiful women.

Ive put a couple of turns into R parts so I'll switch out and maybe we can get it in trade.

That's a neat trick and hope it works since we need science bad. Liz/Fred/Peter/Hatty are way ahead of us.

That's really my only concern is our science. We need a good trade bait and hopefully steel may offer that but I not crazy about spreading around military techs. We lack Education and should we acquire a GS we should use him to lightbulb. I think to compensate for our poor science Pisae should be a GS pump to get us some necessary techs. It's our sheer size that is slowing down our science and need some commerce buildings.

I'd have to say that we are military wise in tip top shape and certainly ready to wreak havoc on Mehmed. He won't know what him.

 

[mice]

That's really my only concern is our science. We need a good trade bait and hopefully steel may offer that but I not crazy about spreading around military techs. We lack Education and should we acquire a GS we should use him to lightbulb. I think to compensate for our poor science Pisae should be a GS pump to get us some necessary techs. It's our sheer size that is slowing down our science and need some commerce buildings.

There is a GS in Pisae but he will lightbulb Sci method. I wasnt sure what to do with him.
Steel will be good trade bait. Liz isnt trading with Mehemed or Peter, neither is Fred. Both hopefully could hold on to steel and not give it to the bad boys.
It's a bit risky, but it could net us a lot.

Re teching slow, we need to press our military advantage and smash Mehemed, the only danger being cossacks from Peter (also a possible dogpile from Fred in that event.) The AI will take a while to get to infantry which I see as our really big danger from teching slow. In that event we would have to go through a build phase I think before taking on Peter.

My point is that at the moment I dont think it matters too much that we dont have education. A lot of the new cities are coming online with buildings and cottages.

 

[Cosmichail]

My point is that at the moment I dont think it matters too much that we dont have education. A lot of the new cities are coming online with buildings and cottages.

You're right and agree that we should hammer Mehmed hard and use the spoils of war to continue financing our quest. The cossacks definitely could be a problem so I can see your point about rifles. At least with rifles we'd have some defense against them. If we have enough raider units then we might want to consider it. That's quite a stack we have and I do believe the LZ you designated is perfect for attacking Ankara.

As to Freddy we did make a slight error there and do have a -2 negative for holy city razing. To err is human to forgive divine. I don't think he poses an immediate threat but we should keep an eye for any dogpiles near our border.

So after steel we try to trade for RP. I noticed Tatran do that trick with researching a little bit of something to get a trade opened up. SCHMART....

We are also still in merc that's why our science is low right now and having astronomy would open up good trade routes for us. Economics probably right now would serve us better than Education (which we need for academy but not a pressing issue). I am sure with economics our trade routes would flourish and we'd see an improvement in science.

 

[mice]

We are also still in merc that's why our science is low right now and having astronomy would open up good trade routes for us. Economics probably right now would serve us better than Education (which we need for academy but not a pressing issue). I am sure with economics our trade routes would flourish and we'd see an improvement in science.

Yea, I'm not a big fan of mercantilism. A lot of the free specialists are citizens and artists. I favour trade routes too. Liz and Freddy will offer plenty.

 

[JesusOnEez]

Double Post.

 

[JesusOnEez]

I'm also in agreement to go for Economics over Education for money purposes. I think during my turnset I built a few economic builds in the cities that would most benefit, and there were a couple still to come by the end of my turnset. They got us from researching at 30% to 50% at least...or not...some of that was Golden Age.

I can't stress enough about spreading the faith, missionaries are fairly cheap and each one (if it spreads first time) is work +1gpt so keep 'em coming.

What chances of the Spiral Minaret or has someone already got it? I'm kind of wishing I saved the GE for that instead of the Taj.

 

[JesusOnEez]

No got it for a second time from vra, must be busy again. Over to you Cosmichail.

 

[Cosmichail]

Accept this as my "got it" your highness. We shall sail the high seas and put an end to the infidel. Let the mighty Crusaders sail to the infidel's land and complete the circle. Nothing I enjoy more than razing, razing and of course razing. What better thing to do for the Black Knight. Hugh de Payen thanks for the great set up. That will make things easy with that army.

 

[vra379971]

Thanks, was going to ask for a swap.

 

[Cosmichail]

THE CRUSADERS​

Black Knight enters the throne room and see that the previous Regent left our empire in tip top shape. Looking out to the sea he sees the massive fleet ready to embark on a Crusade to the infidel’s lands. The fleet admiral addresses Black Knight: “my lord, we are ready to sail to the Islamic Holy land. We only seek your approval sire.” Black Knight responds “await Admiral for one more ship to join in protecting the fleet then you may set sail for England”. I soon shall join you in onboard since a warrior’s place is with his soldiers.

The next morning Black Knight arrives at the docks and boards the ship. He is not a sea faring man and loves the land. Going to smash the infidel has a great meaning for him especially at the side of King Arthur, Phillippe, and the grand master of the Knights Templar. All are aboard the flag ship of the 1st fleet and the admiral orders the fleet to set sail. In the Captains quarters the Knights plan for their arrival in England and discuss what they may face. King Arthur: “We may face troops unknown to us Knights and we must be careful how we move through the lands. Seeking a defensive position is utmost importance to keep our troops safe from attack.:” Black Knight: “King Arthur we will have a second fleet equipped with cannons on the way. It won’t be long before we can build a unit that will prove impervious to mounted cavalry. I do agree that we need to tread carefully with our army”. Hugh de Payen: “What of Russia and the threat she poses, we will have difficulty facing both should the Russians join in”. Black Knight: “Agreed they are a threat however our common need for bureaucracy may improve relations enough to remove the threat. We have an overwhelming force and should be able to hold off any attacks on such excellent defensive terrain.”

Phillippe remarks: “Our Great God will protect us in battle and we must have faith in that.” All the Knights look at Phillippe and nod in agreement. Then in conjunction all bow their heads and pray for protection and guidance.

Many days later………

The fleet is near arrival at England and has also helped the Knights learn of Hatshepsut’s other city. The Black Knight looks out on the island and thinks we should stop and finish that city off. King Arthur says: No, no Black Knight she observes our faith we must leave her be now”. The Black Knight just grunts in agreement but in his heart he wants her destroyed.

The landing

The Knights arrive at England in hopes they may help Queen Elizabeth fend off Mehmed and engage in their Holy duty of destroying the infidel. Although she is a Buddhist the Crusaders tolerate that for now. Of course they wish to send missionaries to change that but she holds the Holy City and unlikely she would change.
Taking leave of the Regency Black Knight turns over the impending battle to the capable hands of Phillippe du Plaissis. Satisfied with the results of his Regency the Black Knight goes to join the Crusaders in battle.



Turn 1

Rome finishes missionary starts an observatory
Marseille starts a mace to build a few more raider units anticipating getting rifles.

I notice our gpt is negative and will have to drop science. Rather than do that I make this deal with Peter. Sell him marble for 11gpt which won’t give him health or happy.

This fixes our deficit and we can continue to run at 60% science.

Turn 2

Start Orleans on a galleon to use for a second fleet which is gathering. Our first fleet is on the way to Liz.

Turn 3

Arretium starts a Christian monastery for science and another missionary pump.

Turn 4

Alexandria starts a theatre to culture pressure Mehmed’s city. It already getting engulfed in Byzantine culture. (if we are Byzantines then shouldn’t Rome be called Constantinople.)

Paris we have 1 unhappy so whip the bank.

Turn 5

Pisae – grocer
Paris – Coliseum (happy problems there and Cathedral will take too long)
Asyut is now Christian.
Lyons – Grenadier
Hieraconpolis – lighthouse
Heliopolis – Forge

Turn 6

Pi-Ramesses start a library
Alexandria is also Christian.

(all of our cities our Christian now.)

I noticed Peter running around with settler so started one in Orleans to get him there quick.

Turn 7

We discover steel and initiate the following trades:

I choose Education mainly due to needing it to get economics and he wouldn’t offer anything in combo so I thought we could get DR for spiral but it’ been built already.

Again the reason I opted for Constitution is that it’s more beakers then RP and we can research pretty quick.

Turn 8

We get a GMerchant in Pisae and use him to bulb Economics.

Now we can go to free market/representation.

The revolution will take three turns of anarchy but that’ll be one of the last revolts until we get democracy and alleviate that emancipation penalty.

Turn 9-11

Rather than handoff a game in the middle of anarchy I played 11 turns so that the next player can start the war. The troops arrived near the 10th turn and are landed outside Ankara. The only concern I have is the cavalry but a combat III grennie should hold up. We have a 2nd fleet in the works and building cannons which could be shipped to the battlefield.

On 11th turn we come out anarchy and at 60% have 36gpt (considering it cost us 11 gpt to have troops far away) not bad at all. Science has improved a lot and RP can be researched in 5 turns. (some cities have good trade routes especially Rome where the science went from 84 beakers to 142.)

Now we are concerned about Peter but here’s a good spot of news:

That civics bonus gets better with time so even with a declaration on Mehmed he may remain pleased. Liz does need help as she is sandwiched between Peter and Mehmed and both don’t like her. I tried to see if Peter would war with Mehmed but he won’t just Liz. Also during the game Hatshepsut revoked her vassal with Fred. We did find her other hideout on a island between England and Rome. We could finish her since she will never get even to cautious with us but we may in the spirit of the variant leave her be since she has accepted our religion.

I would not trade steel with Peter for obvious reasons.

Rooster:

Cosmichail - Black Knight - Just played
Rince - Phillippe de Plaissis - UP
Jesusoneez - King Arthur - on deck
Mice - Hugh de Payen
Vra379971 - Jacques de Molay swap?

 

[vra379971]

Yup, will take and play now =)