KA01 - A Simple Deity Space Race

[AlanH]

I'm no gold winger at this end of the game. My games finish before or around this time and rarely depend on reputation But I think clean rep is only really important for diplo victories, and when you need to be able to do gpt deals. Right now I don't think we do need gpt deals, and I don't know whether we shall before the end of the game. It looks to me as if we can keep currently up by tech trading and buying for cash when necessary. I assume the keys are to get our GA going to accelerate evertything, to ensure we win the ToE slingshot, and then to use pre-builds for our spaceship.

PS I think we lost our rep when a trade woute was broken by war. There's a post a page or so back about it. Once it's broken it stays broke.

 

[Mistfit]

Ok... so we are getting more and more like the Mongols
War Mongering cruddy rep Astronauts I can live with that.

@Karasu

The 1st one is your current. Is the second one "brighter"?

 

[DJMGator13]

I think I'm up. Is this right?

Roster time:

Gator - Up
Mistfit - On deck
Tomoyo - polishing up his Latin and trying to figure out how to kick the Sox in the behind and get them to start playing good ball
Karasu - debating "Do I like the brighter one or the more faded look?"
Nikof - wandering around the world
AlanH - admiring all those bright shiny buildings he constructed

 

[Karasu]

Yes it looks right indeed, so you are up.
Our Golden Age is waiting...

@Mistfit. thanks a lot... I think I prefer the faded look...

 

[DJMGator13]

I'll play and post today.

 

[Mistfit]

Oh sure, Give me a hard time because I'm holding you up over at R&L01 and then not have these turns ready for me here? J/K -

BTW I've posted my turns there.

 

[DJMGator13]

Preturn - 650AD
turn sci down to 80% still in 4 turns at +439gpt (vrs 292gpt)

IBT - trade Wmap with Japan / OTTO attacks London losing 3 knights before razing it to the ground / ZULU troops appear to be headed south / ENG galley moving south between Canterbury & Camulodunum

Turn 1 - 660AD
switch Mohacs from marketplace to settler & rush to claim former London spot
settler near Tours - not really sure where he was heading so I send him NE so the galley can pick him up and move into ENG terr
switch Tours from settler to aqueduct (and rush it) city at +6fpt

IBT - ZULU continue south / OTTO moves in settler towards former London site - oops not a settler its was workers (turn animations back on) / ENG galley still south possibly to an indefended Eboracum

Turn 2 - 670AD
capture Coventry - killing 4 while losing 1 cav
capture Hastings - killing 3 losing 0
stagglers - kill 2 cavs lose 1 cav

IBT - IND wants RPO and MA vrs ZULU - I decline for now - trade Wmaps instead / ENG galley unloads a knight north of Eboracum

Turn 3 - 680AD
switch Paris from settler to marketplace (WW at 18% there)

knight kills the ENG knight
capture Newcastle - killing 2 losing 1 knight capture 2 cannons and

switch Hastings to settler and rush it - need to fill in ENG lands
rush another settler in Mohacs

IBT - ENG & IND sign a peace treaty / spy the first OTTO sipahi

Turn 4 - 690AD
Learn Steam Power set to Medicine (est cost 4000) in 4 turns [Electricity (est 5600) says 6 turns then Sci Method (est 4000) est 4 turns] - est 14 turns until sci method - we are generating 1055 beakers a turn with GA

Paris riots was OK last turn - WW at 18%

we have 3 source of coal one S of Grenoble, one SW SW of Paris & one S of Entremont – none are currently hooked up - NOTE: none of these are in our original lands

OTTO still refuses to trade Nationalism even though we are up 2 techs and +441gpt

Sell Steam Power around the horn
JPN give Wmap, 40 gold & 192gpt
AZT give Wmap, 2 gold & 97gpt
OTTO give Wmap, 80 gold & 44 gpt
AMR give Wmap, 40 gold & 62gpt
IRQ deal of the century Wmap, 20 gold & 8gpt - figure they will buy it from either AMR, JPN or AZT
ZUL & IND have no gpt available to trade

Gift IND some saltpetter to slow down the ZULU - IND is down to only 5 cities

Barcelona has 293 shields in production box already, need 307 more for TOE estimated 14 turns to Sci Method and currently at 24spt w/o any RR 14x24=336 / at this rate it will complete 2 turns before we learn sci method, but our palace prebuild will allow us to go over the 600 shields needed

IBT - AZT have a frigate and galleon heading towards ENGs last 2 cities / MA w/ZUL vrs ENG expires do not renew it (sell them Steam Power for Wmap, 2 gold & 20gpt before they buy it from someone else) / MA w/OTTO vrs ENG expires do not renew it / ZUL razes an IND town that has a coal source

Turn 5 - 700AD
2 Dumb moves -#1 Paris rush a courthouse (only making 1 spt out of 20spt) - forgot that Palace is in Entremont now (we only gained 1 spt from this buy, 2spt by turn 10 though)
#2 rush another settler from Mohacs to try and claim the former IND coal - decide I don't need it (already have enough settlers) and change back to marketplace (no harm since I change it before it reduced the pop)

capture Oxford - kill 2 loss 1 cav
capture Warwick - kill 2 lose 0
The Queen is Dead - ENG gone bye-bye

IBT - OTTO forces start moving south

Turn 6 - 710AD
drop sci to 70% medicine still in 2 turns at +937gpt

With our gold influx I start rushing some builds to claim territory and to get cities growing again

found Palma (near where London was)
found Cordoba (in former ENG lands)

IBT - AZT land some troops next to Canterbury (ZUL) because the AZT & ZUL are still at war / IND down to 3 cities

Turn 7 - 720AD
all the rushed items complete - start most of former ENG cities on courthouse
our coal is hooked up - can finally start RR
takes 6 regular workers to RR grass tile

IBT - AZT knights die attacking Canterbury / OTTO troops continue back home / OTTO learned Economics

Turn 8 - 730AD
learn Medicine set to Electricity in 4 at 100%
OTTO still will not trade Nationalism

Barcelona at 391 shields (now at 28spt )

IBT - trade Wmaps with AMR / OTTOs continue home / lost our silks, spices & gems deals

Turn 9 - 740AD
TRADE:
wines, coal, furs & incense to AZT for spices
furs, saltpeter, dyes, Wmap & 25gold to JPN for silks
iron, Wmap & 80 gold to IRQ for gems
Got all three back w/o giving up Medicine - want to keep our head start on TOE

IBT - trade Tmaps with AZT / an Impi & a cannon head North out of Canterbury - why?? watch them

Turn 10 - 750AD
workers RR

Notes to Next Player
1) I've got 2 settlers heading towards the jungle north of Madras & east of Bombay to claim the other coal source there
2) We are not at war with anyone - keep an eye on the Impi & cannon by Canterbury
3) I've got five 6 worker turn crews RR - we need more workers, we have a lot of land to RR
4) Electricity is due in 2 turns, set to Sci Method and you should be able to lower the sci rate back to around 70 or 80% and maintain the 4-turn research rate
5) The prebuild in Barcelona for TOE should have the 600 shields the same turn we learn the Sci Method, you can use "Big Picture" then F1 to change the prebuild before selecting the next tech or just build it the next turn with a shield overage
6) Don't research Nationalism, after the TOE slingshot we should be able to trade for it
7) I did not have anything to start a prebuild for Hoover Dam with since Barcelona is already pre-building for TOE

The 750AD Save

 

[Mistfit]

Ok, Good turns Gator. Looks like our 2nd (or was it 3rd) expansion phase has come to a close. Goals for my turn set. Rails, workers out of corrput cities, 4 turn burn on Tech, Set-up Prebuild for Hoover's.

 

[AlanH]

Well done! Nice to see another on bite the dust, even if it is England - one less to keep tabs on in F4

Re Nationalism: I'm not a Space race player usually, but I assume the objective is to get into the modern era as soon as possible. Would you ever research the optional techs in this phase of the game? (apart from Sanitation, maybe)

 

[Mistfit]

I played COTM05 out through this phase of the game and I kept to the required tech's only. The AI will give us nothing of use in techs for the rest of the game. They will be going after things like Communism and Nationalism and Espionage. I say we burn through the required techs and broker them off to the AI for gpt to help our research pace.

Funny side note to the COTM is that I got every tech in this age at the 4 turn pace until I got to Flight. @ 100% I could only get that in 5. So I decided to try to bump the speed up by hiring scientist. I had over 130 scientist and I could still not get flight in 4.

 

[AlanH]

COTM 5 is Regent level, as this is Deity the AI tech pace will be much faster, so we need to keep out eye on the ball. They are going to give us a race to the end, I suspect. Re the expensive techs, a neat trick at lower levels is to hold off on finishing ToE until you get to Flight and Radio in this era, or even a couple of modern era techs. Then you get more expensive techs for free. I doubt if we can risk it at Deity level though, and we should probably stick to the tried and tested Atomic Theory and Electronics.

 

[Mistfit]

Agreed they are different levels of difficulty but I think that the AI will still research the Non required tech's so we shouldn't count the AI for anything. If they do happen to pick one or two of 'em great.

 

[DJMGator13]

I'm like Alan in that I rarely play this long into a game, having usually won already (based on techs researched not date - although I did post my best finish date in COTM05). But in the games that I have played this far the AI will stay on the top part of the tech tree in this age. Alan is correct that we do not need to research the dead-end techs, which the AI seems to value in this age. The only reason to get Nationalism is for defense purposes and being able to draft or even mobilize if necessary. If we become too weak in the eyes of OTTO we could become subject to an attack.

On the attack subject, the ZULUs are still short Military Tradition. We should position part of our attack forces on the OTTO border but also on the ZULU border. If OTTO attacks them we should join in and grab some ZULU cities as well. We may want to consider massing up an invasion fleet and hitting the other land mass. We are currently importing 3 luxes from 3 different civs, it would be nice to own them, so that we do not run the risk of losing them. It will become harder to maintain all 3 via trading techs, because we will have to renew them on the IBT and the first civ could/will trade either the tech or the lux around before our turn comes back.

 

[Tomoyo]

Am I up or is Mistfit?

 

[DJMGator13]

Since Karasu has slow internet connection on weekends.

Roster time:

Mistfit - Up
Tomoyo - on deck - working on a Joe Torre voodoo doll
Karasu - likes the faded look
Nikof - globetrotting
AlanH - wondering where the English went
Gator - found them in GOTM36

 

[Karasu]

Great roster

I agree with sticking to the required techs only. And I am afraid too that the AI will contribute very little to the coming techs -the only one I am almost sure of is Replaceable Parts, so let us make sure that we can put them in the position to research it as soon as we can.

I also agree in securing our borders with Otto and Zulu. I wouldn't plan on another attack though, unless we need more cities to remain at 4-turns per tech (which would surprise me at this point).
The only possibility I see is to have a war with India, Zulu or Otto if we want one of our research partners to grow a little more (I still favour Ottos, and btw -did they manage a kill with a Sipahi?). This would mean gifting them the cities we would conquer from the other civs of course

I wouldn't really make plans for an invasion of the other continent -in fact, is there a way to make any use of those civs?

 

[DJMGator13]

We need to skip Mistfit for a while, I got a PM from his wife and his father passed away. He will be unavailable for almost 2 weeks. So that would put Tomoyo up.

@Karasu - OTTO did not get their Sipahi (Dragoon) into battle with ENG. ZUL is doing a number on IND so I think they will be gone soon. AZT actually landed 2 knights to attack the ZUL with but failed.

 

[AlanH]

BTW. It's our illustrious leader's birthday today!

Happy Birthday Karasu [dance]

 

[AlanH]

@ Mistfit : Condolences on your sad loss if you're listening.

 

[Tomoyo]

Got it. I won't play until after the game, and only if the Sox win. If the Sox lose, it might take a few more hours.

By the way, my voodoo worked! Hopefully, we'll win twice in the same day today...

@Mistfit: The citizens of Mistfitzia will lower their flags to half-mast to recognize their great leader.