Keek-01

[gilgatex]

And the save:

 

[regoarrarr]

Okay let's play.

We do a brief city review.

First of all - Ohio! We'll get a new great person next turn.



If it's an engineer, I'm thinking we'll rush the Mausoleum of Mausollos (for longer golden ages). Scientist we'll use to bulb Education when we're done with Paper.

As we discussed, I swapped back to Granary in New York and whipped that, and I'll whip the theater next. Whip the courthouse in Texas, the theater in Alabama and Maine, and a catapult in Oregon. Like we talked about, generally if a city is working "junk" (un-improved) tiles, it's better to whip them away.

I sell Literature to Wang Kon and Aesthetics to Sitting Bull for a total of 120 gold.

Turn 146 - our great person was a scientist, so I'll put him on ice for another turn. I dial up more cats and workers and such. Aesthetics to Lincoln for another 70 gold.



With the cows potentially gone at New York, I decide to make Texas our Globe Theater site. I look and you forgot to also revolt to Organized Religion when you revolted to Bureaucracy Not a big deal, and it's not worth another turn of anarchy to do it now. But it means

Turn 147 - Hinduism spreads in Alabama and Montana. I spot a worker finished mining a desert hill.



Desert hill = junk. Generally not worth improving. Send him to mine a grass hill.

Turn 152 - Education comes in and I set us to Music so we can pick up the free great artist. That will be useful for either a golden age or for a culture bomb in our war. I start Ohio on a University.



Turn 154 - Pericles now has Philosophy in addition to Theology but won't trade either. He also built the Apostolic Palace (for Buddhism), which mostly means that any Buddhist buildings that we build also get 2 hammers. So it may make sense to slip a few of those in.



Turn 155 - It looks like our culture fighting at New York has paid off!



We get the cows back and Wang even pastured them for us!! Thanks bud!

Turn 156 - Music comes in and we do get the Great Artist, which I send over to Missouri, which I'm using as our staging area for an invasion on Joao. Pericles still won't trade Philosophy, but I figure we might as well start Gunpowder next. That will let us start cranking out our janissaries and then we can go to Liberalism-> Nationalism next.

Turn 157 - with Paper in, I get the world map from Lincoln along with 80 gold for Literature. I get annoyed at continuing to have to deselct Hunting all the time so I just take that too

Turn 159 - we get another Engineer, so I decide to rush the Mausoleum of Mausollos in Ohio. And then I noticed that Sitting Bull apparently already built it Guess we should have rushed it when we had the chance. Guess we'll just hang on to him for now, and use him for a golden age.

Turn 160 - I see we still have that filler city site, so I found Hawaii there. It has a few workers there to chop jungles.

 

[regoarrarr]

NOTES FOR NEXT TIME.

1) We are building the Globe in Texas with whip overflow. Here's a primer on how that works. I just swapped it to a Buddhist Temple, which is 80 hammers. It currently makes 8 hammers per turn. So in 2 turns, it will have 16/80 in the box (64 hammers remaining). With no forge, and no Organized Religion, it will take 3 pop to whip (2 pop = 60 hammers). So that will give us 26 hammers or so overflwo into the Globe. I've also got some workers there chopping jungle on the grass hills.

2) I think that we should use one of the engineers for a Golden Age next turn.

3) When Gunpowder comes in, let's go Philosophy (if nobody will trade it) and then Liberalism. Look for someone to want to trade Theology also. Once Gunpowder comes in, we'll want to start building tons of Janissaries. We currently have 15 catapults . You'll also want to go through the cities and see where any of our higher promoted axes are and send those to the west too. Unless you've got a problem with it, my plan is to send our armies to Joao and then Pericles, and then once we vassalize them, we'll send forces east to Lincoln and Hammurabi. Sitting Bull and Wang Kon can be our buds (unless we need their land to hit domination ) Of course, maybe we shoudl smack Sitting Bull around. He's got the Hindu Shrine (1 gold for every Hindu city plus the Mausoleum of Mausollos. Maybe our troops can take him out on the way back from Greece

Here's a world map shot - our borders in the green line.



4) We should probably trade Music to Wang Kon for Metal Casting - he's also got Machinery (it's not listed as "Can Research" on F4 and Engineering is), so we could probably swing Civil Service to him for that too. The idea is to get Engineering which would let us move 3 tiles / turn on roads instead of only 2 - that will speed up logistics for our war.

And here's the save.

 

[regoarrarr]

Oh one other thing - I noticed at Mississippi I still have an artist running. Fire him and put him on the clams.

Oh and when Utah's borders pop, take it off buildilng Culture and on to probably a library.

I didn't really build many markets or courthouses - my thought is that with our game (hopefully) ending before too terribly many turns, the payoff thresholds for those buildings were past the expected end of this game.

A simpler example with a forge, which costs 120 hammers and gives 25% to hammers. So in order to pay off, we'll need to be building 480 hammers worth of stuff after the forge (before the end of the game) to make it worth it. Not sure if that is worth it, especially in more marginal cities.

Ohio probably should get a forge next though just because Ohio is awesome (no really it's making plenty of hammers and will definitely pay off). Need to get MC from Wang first though of course

 

[regoarrarr]

Oh and fire that artist at New York too

 

[regoarrarr]

Oh and one more thing lol

I have the worker in our NW roading to the Portuguese border. This is to facilitate our logistics.

And we shoudl probably hit the Espionage screen (Ctrl-E) and focus the majority of our EPs on Joao, if you agree on hitting him first

 

[gilgatex]

Turn 160:
Traded:

Set Mississippi dude to clams

Turn 161:
Finished Buddhist Temple in Ohio, started Forge
Finished Catapault in SD, started another catapault
Wang Kon doesn't want to let Machinery go for Civil Service

Got silk from lincoln for one of our three sugars

Turn 162:
Utah popped, started on library

Turn 163:
Finished Gunpowder! Started on Philosophy
Catapault finished in California, started on Janissary
Forgot about SD whip last turn Whipped with 2, sorry not much leftover.
Started a golden age with one of our engineers (also forgot about it until I did a unit check)

Turn 164:
Forge finished in Ohio, started on Jannisary
Catapault finished in Montana, started on Jannisary
Wang Kon is still being a... well... Wang


Turn 165:
Finished Philosophy, started on Machinery
Barracks finished in New York, started on Janissary

Turn 166:
Ohio finished janissary, but I think he needs a friend
Finished catapault in Missouri, started another Janissary
Finished lighthouse in Alabama, started (you guessed it!) Janissary
Finished catapault in South Dakota. Can I get a J-A-N-I-S-S-A-R-Y???

Turn 167:
Ohio built janissary. Recommend Maceman? I think not. JANISSARY!!!
Missouri wants me to build a University.

SCREW YOU! KEEP BUILDING JANISSARIES!
Janissary->Janissary in California
Granary in Mississippi. Started on Library. But secretly wished it was a Janissary.

Turn 168:
Janissary->Janissary in Montana
Hammam->Janissary in Oregon

Turn 169:
Finished Machinery, started on Liberalism
Janissary->Janissary in Ohio
Theater->Library in Florida

Turn 170:
janissary->janissary in Ohio AGAIN
Barracks->janissary in Maine
Whipped janissary in New York due to overpopulation

Here's our military situation:


I think we will have enough for a full on offensive in your next set of turns.

We're now #1 in military, by the way.

 

[regoarrarr]

Okay preflight check.



Military is looking good. Tech wise we're on Liberalism, due in 4 turns. I send Drama to Pericles for 60 gold. If he's going to be next on our hit list, might as well have him building theaters rather than anything useful I also send it to Lincoln for HBR and 40 gold.

Nobody will trade Theology, so I'll probably need to slip that in before we finish Liberalism, so that we can double revolt to Nationhood and Theocracy. We probably SHOULD have gotten it before, so we could have revolted during our current golden age, but that's okay. It's not going to matter much



Cancel this worker roading a desert mine up near Missouri. We need this guy roading to the front!!!

I send half (10) of our catapults up to Missouri. We'll start off with a 2 front war. Generally you don't want to do this, but we've got plenty of troops to handle it.

I also swap 2 of our Janissary builds that haven't started over to trebuchets.

I hit enter and our golden age ends.

1120 - We get ANOTHER freakin Great Artist. While normally they wouldn't be so bad, the problem is that we already have one, so we can't kick off another golden age (you have to have 2 GPs of different types). But then I notice this



He'll bulb Theology, which will save us 3 turns of research. So I go for that.

Wang Kon comes up with some giant wad of cash, so I "relieve" him of it. That lets us turn up science to 100% at a cost of -234 gold, but getting us Liberalism in 1.





I set research on Chemistry on our way to Steel. If we need any "help" with our war, cannons will be sure to provide it.


So in Nationhood, we can draft 3 units (Janissaries) every turn. Since our army is going to be heading (for now) west, the idea is to draft the cities in the east first. Drafting a unit costs one population, and also 3 unhappy faces for 10 turns. So if you can help it, you want to avoid drafting a city more than once every 10 turns. We have 14 cities, as shown above. Ohio we probably don't want to draft, since it's essentially making a Janissary every 2 turns or so anyways. Texas we'll draft every turn, because it's high food and it has the Globe Theater so it has no unhappiness. The smaller cities can't be drafted (need to be at least size 6 to draft), but the other ones we should hit for sure, every 10 turns or so.

Annoyingly I notice Joao now has Feudalism, which means we'll see some longbows in the field. Hopefully it won't be too bad. I ship him Code of Laws and Music for Feudalism, just to make sure we can more easily see when anyone reaches Guilds.

Turn 174 - I draft from Alabama, New York and Texas.

Wow, here's something that you don't see every day!!!



I accept! I didn't really want to have to attack Wang since he's our best pal and all. And now we don't have to! This is actually pretty rare and happens when you have someone that really likes you plus is fairly weak.

I grab all of his resources that we don't have. Because he's our vassal now, we also can tell what he's researching. Conveniently for us, it's Compass, which is a tech we don't have.

Turn 175 - Draft from California, Oregon and Texas again.

Turn 176 - We pick up Compass from our buddy Wang for Theology. He's on to Optics which we also don't have. Buuuuuuuuuuut we don't really want Optics - we'd much rather have him research Printing Press, which will give us about 20-30 gold per turn from our towns and villages. So I dial him up



And he switches for us (vassals always do). I draft South Dakota, Missouri and Texas. Texas is temporarily unhappy but that will all go away in 2 turns when the Globe completes.



Though actually since it was just short of completion, I hire a prophet so it will complete next turn.

Turn 177 - I draft from Texas, Montana and Maine. I think we probably have enough to take out Joao and Pericles, so the Janissary in Maine will start up our eastern contingent. For the next few turns, I will split resources half and half between the west and the east and then when we're sure we have enough in the west, we'll send everything east.

Joao's time has now come, so I dial him up. First of all, here is the lines of attack.



And here's the declaration



I actually mess things up because I had the southern army in Missouri itself, which can't move next to Oporto in one turn. Oh well - the actual attack will be delayed a turn. Though one thing that will be nice is that we can cross the river which means we won't be attacking across a river (and incurring a 25% penalty)

And.... that's all for now. I will play the rest of my turns (the war) probably tomorrow

 

[regoarrarr]

Just wanted to update you that I played the rest of my turns and am working on the report which should be up before too long

 

[regoarrarr]

Okay, so it wasn't quite tomorrow.... but here we go

Turn 178 - 1180 AD. Lincoln comes by wanting to swap world maps.... nah. I move our stacks towards the Portuguese cities. Draft just from Texas. Other than that, just continuing to build units.

Turn 179 - now let's get some action. First up is Oporto, where our stack of 9 Janissaries and 10 catapults is opposed by... 4 longbows and an axe



First I bombard with 4 catapults, which drops the city defense from 60% to 45%. Unfortunately we don't have any accuracy (double promoted) cats at the city, and it appears that Oporto has walls, so the defenses don't drop down very fast. I check odds



9.9 vs. 10.80, but because of the way the Civ 4 Combat engine works, that's only 26% odds. Let's see what happens if we drop the defenses a bit more.

A few more cats and that's much better!



We have 1 cat left over, so we'll send him in to cause some collateral damage. I probably actually screwed that up a bit - we should have probably saved 2 or 3 for collateral. I suppose I could just wait a turn - it's not like these guys are going anywhere... I do decide to do that.


I also dial up science from 50 to 60% to get Chemistry next turn (we were just short).

Turn 180 - I draft at Texas (and realize I forgot to draft last turn - oops!). Time for Oporto, take 2. Joao has added 2 more longbows, a cat and another axe, but we haven't been no slouches!



Between the 2 tiles, we now have 13 Janissaries and 12 cats. Our 2 5XP cats get promoted to Accuracy and bombard, which drops defenses from 24 to 8%. Our C1 Jan has 64.8% odds, but let's send in a cat or 2!

After 2 cats, here's where we stand now.



Much better!!

C1 Jan vs. CG1 longbow @ 92.5% odds - win!
4 more unpromoted Jans vs. 4 more longbows at odds in the high 80s - all win! (The reason to not promote them I will demonstrate shortly)
Then it's just mopup - we lose no units.

 

[regoarrarr]

Because we control much of the culture, and because one of our stacks was on the road, it can move through Oporto and on to Lisbon.



We also get a Great General in Montana. Probably the best use of him is to create a Medic 3 healer that will help speed the healing of our units. We could get a free promotion to a Maceman, but I usually don't because ideally you don't want this unit defending in any counter attacks. I'll definitely look for an opportunity to get him a few more XPs so he can take the promotion that gives +1 movement. Ideally I'd have built a chariot or horse archer as a medic but we didn't build any Start sending him west. Further GGs we can settle in Texas for extra XPs on our drafted units.



And now let's head for Guimares. It's only at 40% defense, but it is on a hill.

Aaaaaand then my computer crashes. I reload and attempt to play things out the same, but the odds are different, so I have to suicide 1 more cat, and our GG instead of being born in a nice convenient western city like Montana, is born all the freakin way over in Alabama. So instead of attaching it to an axe, I decide to build a 1-turn Chariot in Ohio to attach him to. Generally the "rule" of replays is to play it exactly how you played it (to make it fair), but in this case the game decided to be different.

Okay - Guimares for real. I bombard with 7 cats and 2 trebs, which drops the defenses down to 4%.

We do have 1 5XP Jan, who I promote to Cover (anti-archer), which gives him odds (62.7%), so I send him in. He dies :-(. Then I remember I was supposed to send in some cats first. Oh well fair janissary - sorry I just threw your life away



But then I check and he actually did NO damage to the steenkin longbow! Guess he was just a big wimp anyways

After 3 cats, we're in much better position.



4 janissaries all win and we take the city.

We should have brought along some combat workers - some workers around to road the indicated tiles would have sped up our advance for sure.



Draft in Texas and Utah, whip the forge in New York, and I notice that while we have only lost a single Janissary, we're down several siege units, so I swap some builds that just started from Jans to Cats and Trebs, and then end turn.

Turn 181 - draft in Texas, and notice Joao thinks this little mini stack of outdated junk is going to do anything.



I ignore it for now - we should have plenty of units trickling to the front to handle it whenever it gets on flat land.

Okay - here's why I left those Jans unpromoted. Each promotion heals half the hitpoints of a unit. So by double promoting a unit, I can heal it up to just about full health. Another reason is that if you have a 3XP unit already promoted, and gain 2XP from a battle (earning it 5XP and eligibility for another promotion), you can't promote it till the next turn. But if you have a 3XP unit that hasn't been promoted yet, and it gets 2 more XP from a battle, you CAN double promote it (healing it and giving it promotions it might need on defense). We didn't need to do that here because Joao isn't going to be sending anything that we need to worry about (I hope!) but in many situations it can be quite useful.



I swap Alabama to a Hindu Monastery so it can build some more Hindu missionaries to convert the rest of our cities (the only other one in Ohio and that's too big of a military pump).

Interturn - no attacks - that futile Portuguese stack is advancing

Turn 182 - Draft from Texas - heal units in Oporto and Guimares that are not at full health. Ones at full health (and all the siege) marches on to Lisbon.

Turn 183 - Draft from Texas, and now that Portuguese stack has come out of the Fireswamp (aka jungle), let's smack it around.



All the attacks are 95%+ and I lose nothing.

 

[regoarrarr]

On to Lisbon, where the valiant Portuguese military of 6 units (5 of which are junk) is opposed by 2 stacks of County Counting men numbering 18 janissaries, 16 cats and 2 trebs.



300 this is not...


(I bombarded with our 2 accuracy cats and a few other ones, then suicided 2, and that gave us odds enough that we lost no janissaries)

And Joao has had enough. We take his capitulation, sign open borders (so our units can move on Greece), and then ship him a few techs for this.



I also take his deer and spices which we don't have.

We get a Great General, which I send to Texas to settle.

Turn 184 - one last turn. Now that we have a 10XP unit, we unlock the Heroic Epic (double speed military production). I was going to put it in California, but then I realize that Cali doesn't even have a BARRACKS! Major weed by both of us I check the other cities and everywhere either has a barracks or is working on it. Normally, you would want to save one of your National Wonder slots (each city can only have 2) at your capital for Oxford or Wall Street, but since this game isn't going to last that long, I decide to put it in Ohio.

It won't do a whole lot of good, but just for fun, I kick off a culture bomb in Lisbon.



I've marked in circles the tiles that the bomb pulled into our culture. We would have gotten some of those tiles anyways in time, but oh well. This also ended resistance in Lisbon, which allows units to heal faster as well as start building things.

 

[regoarrarr]

Okay - I've queued up things in a few cities - feel free to revisit those and change if you feel like it. Generally it's considered poor form to hand off a SG with units on go-tos, but I have a few heading to 2 places. Eastern stack loading up in Maine (to eventually go after Lincoln), and the western stack is heading here (I meant to edit in a circle - but it's the forested hill 2NE of Corinth)



Once all the western folks are here - declare on Pericles and move on Corinth. Basic idea is you bombard with units, then suicide 1-3 cats if needed, then send in the Janissaries. Try to protect the ones with more promotions if possible.

Remember to draft Texas every turn, and look for other cities to draft as well. You can look at my previous report for who got drafted 10 turns before and draft those cities again. Though really, we have plenty of spare happiness so it probably doesn't matter. I think we have plenty of units in the west, so send most new units east to Maine. As far as builds, probably mostly cats and trebs.

Tech wise, once we get to Steel, we can probably turn off research, save money, and upgrade our siege to cannons, which will slaughter everything they go up against.

Get Printing Press from Wang when he finishes it in 3 turns - probably set him to research Guilds next. We get a Great Person from Ohio next turn I think - if it's an engineer, I think rush Notre Dame in Ohio? Anything else just save for another golden age.

 

[gilgatex]

Sorry, couldn't get to my turns, I had company over this weekend

 

[regoarrarr]

Bump!