Lionised and Vilified

[vranasm]

Well not exactly after Lib (if we talk about Philo <->Feud, Machinery), but usually when I am deep enough.

Philo doesn't get usually brokered by AI's (it has wonder) and you have 2 blocks on path towards Lib... philo, paper-edu. You can broker one of those paths and I usually prefer brokering Philo.

Of course since I am in no real need for feud/machinery before deep enough towards Lib I delay the trades and so it's matter of couple of turns before hitting Lib.

for Lib->MT we need music (we have), nationhood (we can tech from philo), gunpowder (it is opened by edu which we need for lib anyway). So no real need for Feud+Machinery.

Getting those 2 after cuirs or around that time is of course useful, since we need Feud to vassal our 1st/2nd target and then everyone else. Machinery to open Guilds->Banks which is needed for cavs.

But I guess all above you already know ;-)

 

[cabert]

I see a dead end here, because we don't agree yet on what VC we go for. If it's war, we don't want to trade away CS, that would give our opponents maces. If it's culture, we really should choose 3 main cities, and rush sistin in one of them.

 

[Cam_H]

I maintain that we're well poised for a Cultural win, but aside from Pigswill, it seems everyone else has voiced a desire for Domination or Diplomation (which I'm at least assuming is what's meant by 'kicking heads').

I'm quite OK with it (i.e. happy enough to go along with the bloodlust), despite the personal view that Cultural presents itself as the pathway to our cleanest win.

 

[pigswill]

It seems the consensus is on a military campaign so probably not going for culture.

@cabert. Maces are slightly more problematic than LBs but the AI are also generally keen on engineering and pikes are a definite p.i.t.a. for cuirassiers.

 

[pigswill]

With 8 days and 80 posts since the last set was played I finally lost patience and played 8 turns for a golden age (though no doubt once you've seen the report and save it'll seem more like a 'dark age').

Didn't keep a very neat log.
Started by trading CS to Cat for HbR+70g; CS+drama to Sul for feud+40g. Bulbed philosophy (founded Taoism in the far west). Launched GA with GA. GE resting in Frankfurt. Swopped to caste and pac. Next turn traded drama+hbr to Vic for MC.

Frankfurt ran scientists on a diet. Berlin carried on working on Sistine running a couple of scientists. Got GS in Frankfurt on T6 (heading towards Berlin atm). GS in Berlin T8.

Researched paper then nat (3 turns left).

Sent workers east for chain irrigation and new city:

Hamburg went HE>stables>phants.

Various resource trades: sheep to Cat for clams, fish to Cat for 6gpt, gold to Sul for 5gpt. Napoleon demanded silk for free- agreed- needs to be cancelled in 3-4 turns.

Victoria built AP. We were her rivals for Resident. Voted for Vic so she got 100% of the votes (and we got +2diplo).

It got a bit demanding:

Debated giving philo away but given that Cat still has her hands full I chickened out (and she is indeed massing some units on our borders, good job we have another 7 turns of peace treaty left).

Cities building rax,CH,stables.

Berlin finishes Sistine in 6 turns (or abandons it for failure gold).

Cat has music as well as philo, we only have paper on her (and we can double bulb education at our leisure).

Machinery is up for trade.

Cat has built Chichen Izza.

I meant to whip LH in dusseldorf (marble tundra) but forgot.

Frankfurt hasn't gained any tiles from Vladivostok (though has pinched sugar from Gus). Cat has ele, 3ha, 3 cats, 3-4 other stuff around Vladivostok:

Couple of general info screenshots:

At end of golden age I reverted to NSR. Swopped to bureau, slavery, barbarism.

A save:

 

[cabert]

looks good, although losing monopoly on philo is painful

 

[lymond]

Giving away philo is a strategic nightmare

sure would be nice to have Globe in Fishy. We are going to have to war with Cathy. That stupid city is still bothering me. Would not be a problem if we had rush Globe there and built Sistine there.

 

[vranasm]

I like that we have so many war elephants on the way to the east.

We should build jewish monasteries and temples around imo

Forges would be good too .

Jewish seem like our future religion? Russia we want to fight. Nappy has war with Theresea

finish nat, edu (part bulb - there is stored GS), gp, lib->mt imo

We could build more WE's, HA's since they upgrade cheap to cuirs.

We still can rush the GT with GE in Fish city lymond. We are 6T from finishing SC in berlin... now that would be either fantastic fail gold if we rush SC in Fishy instead or we should just finish it there.

We could beg some gold from Vicky.

Nappy has 120 gold... but risky due to WE status, but would be nice addition.

Hmm would be great to get GM, but we need to get somewhere (berlin?) market...
btw markets give +3 happy for us... so very valuable, but tough to build since we are a bit hammer starved...

Well this are my thoughts after checking the save for whoever will play next set ;-)

 

[Cam_H]

Thanks for the turnset and the report pigswill. Seems that a war dec' is very unlikely for a while! ... at least from the AI

Still have that Great Engineer, still paying unit maintenance in Pacifism? Looks like we have a great chance at slow-building Taj, and 'yes' double-bulbing Education + cheap Philosophical Universities places us in a pretty comfortable spot on top of #1 for land. Oh ... Forges! (Crosspost with vran' this time!)

Roster:

nocho
Sengir
vranasm
pigswill
lymond <<< Up (Note: We must adopt Free Religion upon acquisition of Liberalism).
Cam <<< On Deck
cabert​

 

[vranasm]

@cam

yeah well unis...hmmm I am not sure they are valuable right now for us... over things like jewish buildings/markets/units

I know I am annoying with this already ;-).
I think we are sometimes so fixed on running OU asap that we don't judge the real value correctly and I think that we should maybe delay the whole thing this game in advance of troops/other infra.

But since they are 100H buildings for us... that's maybe not that detrimental...

 

[Cam_H]

Oh honestly ... are we really going to debate this???

I rolled over on Cultural ... surely you can humour me with Oxford Uni'???

 

[Sengir]

@vranasm: if we didn't get them for 100h I'd agree with you, but for the low price of 100h hammers, I think they can be slotted in somewhere in between building units.

 

[vranasm]

Oh honestly ... are we really going to debate this???

I rolled over on Cultural ... surely you can humour me with Oxford Uni'???

well i had recently one very succesful game without OU ;-).

ok we should maybe at least debate where to place it then :-D

I think we have there in the north one cottage city (I never remember the city names), so I would probably place it there.

Then we could debate which cities will get the unis... and that seems to me a little bit more problematic, because we could place the uni in Berlin (but probably after SC?), Munich (instead of building troops?), Frankfurt and here ends my idea
The north city with cottages of course.

Maybe the city in the south (corn, sheep+2x fur) and the last city I just don't see ;-)

 

[Cam_H]

Oh ... you guys are killing me! Really ... Sengir, I know you have no love for Wonders, but "sheesh!" A Philo' leader with access to Stone ...

I agree that Hamburg seems like the spot ... presuming we're putting The Hermitage in Berlin to get our 20,000.

 

[Sengir]

Hey, I already said that given the circumstances we should build uni's . I wouldn't say that if I wasn't planning on building OU.

@vranasm: the location of the last one doesn't really matter. We'll just have to whip it somewhere.

 

[pigswill]

I suspect that a war declaration is about 8 turns away unless we build up power fast enough to get Cat to reconsider. On the other hand in 8 turns we'll have 8 phants in Frankfurt and a couple of HAs on the way.

@lymond. Would you have turned down Cat's demand for philosophy? Rushing Globe is not something you're going to complete in two or three turns. We knew a while back there would be a window of vulnerability before getting to Cuirassiers (or equivalent gunpowder unit) and bulbing educ to speed up lib>miltrad seems a decent way to speed things up.

Obvious point is that going for early rex strengthens you in the longer term but does leave you trailing mid term while waiting for your cities to grow enough to catch up.

 

[lymond]

We gave away a monopoly tech to a civ that will attack us anyway. Philo is also on our path to Lib>Nat. We just gave Cathy more impetus to push in our same direction.

I would have rush globe with the GE.

We played without consensus.

Got it. I'm running two other TS elsewhere so I'll get to this by tomorrow.


edit: Wait...why did we stay in Pac?

 

[lymond]

Okay...I'm thinking we should have just stayed in a religion and traded for Theo. We might as well trade Philo for Machinery and Theo since Philo is cheap and we will just lose any benefit. Lib is in no danger. We can get to Curs pretty fast from here.

So...

1) I think we should just go ahead an rush Globe in Fishy since the GE is there. It's really almost a necessity at this point since we have virtually no units in the city and Cathy attack is imminent. Should have done this sooner. With Globe I can whip all kinds of nonsense to stave off Cathy who looks like she will attack in the next coupe or turns or so.

2) Bulb Edu with 2 GSs we have>Finish Nat> and then go to Lib. Lib MT and start Gunpowder.

3) Berlin finishes Sistine...should have been in Fishy.

4) Not sure where to build Taj...I guess Berlin

5) Not sure how Cologne got neglected

6) Most cities will be focused on units...If Cathy attacks I plan to retaliate with full force. Does she have to survive? I guess capping her would fulfill the variant. Howver, she does have GLH, a Shrine, and Chicken Pizza

7) Hate to be critical, but the worker management here is lacking. Some cities have been totally neglected while workers build unnecessary roads on tundra tiles. Too much worker stacking and not enough spreading the worker love

8) I think Unis will have to wait until we see what happens with Cathy. Since we do get a bonus on them, I could whip units into Unis. I guess Ox will go in Hamburg. There is really not a great place for it unless we go with an SE type cap in Berlin and just settle most of the rest of the GPs.

 

[vranasm]

^^ you could beg gold from vicky and I think maria (both pleased) to stay on 100% longer.

I was thinking about giving lit to nappy for 120g, but it's risky due to WE's. But if you made these 3 things you could stay on 100% up to finish of nat.

other then that looks fine...

I would maybe try to spread irrigation to the south west city, it seemed to me that the cottages down there do nothing to us.

Oh btw suleiman has still some troops in Bursa (the city in the northern middle of our empire) and is very annoying for us, since it already stole 2 very important tiles for our future OU city (Hamburg it is?)

if we weren't pressed by Cathy i would aim our eyes towards that place.

 

[lymond]

I said eff it and went ahead and played since we've been rather indecisive for more than a week. Likewise, I just made decisions.

1) First turn I rushed Globe in Fishy. (no hammers had been spent on Globe) Traded Philo for Theo and Machinery and Gold with Sully and Vicki. Reworked some resource trades here and there and throughout the turnset.

2) Doubled bulb Edu

3) Started units but as expected Cathy declared war in 2 turns. However, she declared on Nappy. Surprise! Not only was she PLeased with Nappy but she is still Pleased with him even at war.

4) Finished Nat in a couple of turns and start Lib, running binary while getting up some Unis - we are out of gold at this point. No rush on units at this point.

5) Get in lots of Forges and AP buildings. Fishy whips in all kinds of goodies and should take back some tiles from Russia in a turn or too.

6) Trade Paper to Vicky for Compass and some Gold. Lit to Wash and some gold...no WE penalty

7) Berlin finishes Sistine and starts Taj. Whip Uni and Forge into Taj. We can 2 pop whip and Jewish Monastery (AP) into Taj next turn. Taj more than half built. No one has Nat

8) Hamburg starts Ox. We could still build it elsewhere if we want.

9) Lots of tile improvements all around. Stuttgart needs some love and some farms.

10) Essen whips Settler into Forge last turn.

11) Last turn finish Lib and take MT. Have not switch to FR. Do we have to do it now or can we wait until Taj.

12) Couple of turns to go and Cathy ask us to join war with Nappy. I checked around. He has no open borders with anyone. No one likes him but Cathy, and he is at war with 2 other AIs that we may buddy up to. I see no reason why not. Plus, we are about to get a serious military tech advantage. Also, we can lure Cathy into a false sense of security I still think we should go after Cathy though but we can try for Nappy...he is not that far away.


Tech:

Spoiler :

It would be nice to get Engineering soon, but it is not for sale at the moment.

Diplo:

Spoiler :

Overall, we have a very strong lead here. Not bad for IMM. Fred's a good leader though. Gunpowder could arrive in 5 turns but we don't have the gold. Probably 1 turn of binary, maybe pinch some from the AIs some way and possible build a little wealth and we will have Curs running soon. Then all hell breaks loose.

After Gunpowder we will want to gather a bit of gold to upgrade the elephants.