LK148 - WM, farewell to Greece

Probably a situation of them having nothing else to build but units. They certainly are no deity juggernaut, like we faced last game, but compared to previous targets, they are well defended. Good thing we tackled them when we did, before they got pikes and MDI, and they don't even have many horses. If we'd waited till they had better units it would have been much slower going.
 
We were lucky that were the next natural choice. I wanted them to simply our borders.
 
Preturn: Decide I want a few more Trebuchets. Otherwise it looks fine.

IBT: Lose a Knight to an attacking Sword. Aztecs get Sun Tzu. St Petersburg riots as it comes out of resistance.

760 AD: Gunpowder is in 1 turn now. The AI getting it has made it cheaper and we can just barely get it in 1 turn at 100% science. Put enough units into st Petersburg so we won't get a flip to let Army heal.

770 AD: Kill units in our lands. Move Knight Army forward. Several elite victories killing surroundng units and no leader.

IBT: We lose a deal with Egypt for Incense. We can't afford the new price. No attacks by Russia. First city Riots and I fix the rest.

780 AD: Army kill several units in Rostov but is fairly injured and won't be able to attack again without healing. Other units join it. Kill the 2 Spear in our lands.

Do some trades. I waffle on trading Chivalry for Incense and gpt from China and Songhai. Decide that they will have the tech before we fight them in any case and we need the gold. Adjust cities back for new Incense.

IBT: We get pretty unlucky and St Petersburg flips. We lose some Horse and Phalanx.
India own SIstine and Egypt owns Templar.

790 AD: Capture Rostov with non-healing Army and Knights. Next few turns will be healing ones for Armies. Loss of a Knight to a Spear. Get a Leader and form the 3rd Army. Sparta can build Pentagon in 16. WIll start it but might switch depending on leader luck.

IBT: Archer Pillages. Phalanx attacked twice losing the second time to a Sword. Egypt also got Leo's. That is the last Wonder to be built. France shows up with a stack of 4 leader-chances... I mean Archers.

800 AD: Unfortunately both Education and Printing Press show up. It does allow us to get Contact with Australia and 58 gpt + gold from india for contact with the American Civs with India.

There is a deal in the offing we can't skip even though it delays a war with our mostly likely next target Babylon. Trade Gunpowder, Wine and 50 gold for Education. Education gets us 6 gold and Printing Press from Persia. Australia is having a bad game, I trade them Writing for 12 gold. Trade more contacts before the AI does (and old techs) with all civs to get up to 500 gold and 163 gpt - up about 130 gpt.


IBT: French attacks our Galley and loses. However, I think this kills our War Happiness with them as many cities again would revolt if I hadn't fixed them.

810 AD: Attack Yaroslavl with our 2 Armies. Also get a leader and decide on the 4th Army and build Pentagon by hand.

IBT: One of our Galleys is sunk by Russian Galley.

820 AD: Capture Yaroslavl with one of our Armies. It loses 4 hp vs a redlined sword going to 2 hp. Another Army moves on to Khabarovsk. Upgraded a few Vet Horses and rushed libraries now our Temples were lost for expansions on the new cities.

IBT: There are very few Russian units left to the North. They have no resistance left

830 AD: Khabarovsk falls easily to one Army. Two Armies heal, The MDI army is heading to Smolensk with Trebuchets,

IBT: Landing in England. We need to have a Phallanx win against an Archer. I think I Knight up there would help. A tougher landing could be a problem.

840 AD: Two Armies advance, One is moving North and the last is healing. Another Library rushed.

IBT: We easily win in England. Finish first Universities in 2 of our bigger towns.

850 AD: Capture Smolensk after Bombardment with Knights. Krasnoyarsk attacked. Moved on Colonne and Yakutsk.
Got a leader and moved to town to get another Army.

Notes:
There is a leader in Yaroslavl. I did not intend for it to run out of movement there. The plan was to use the 3 nearby Vet Knights to form a fifth Army.

We have obligations to nearby civs such as Wines to Babylon and Egypt. Double check for these before declaring war. Persia may end up being the next target because we have no deals with them.

Egypt has Chemistry. 50 gpt + 200-250 gold will get it for us (only checked to the nearest 50 gold) It shaves off 4 turns our getting it and may be reasonable. What do you all think? I didn't check which other civs have it. We may also be able to sell it around to get some gold back - I didn't check that either.

There is a Knight of the coast of England to defend there. Ireland also could use one. Both places need some workers - I think Ephesus should be switched to one on the preturn (didn't realize in time). I think they can also be MM'ed due to Harbors last turn so they now have luxuries so set them to grow.

LK148_AD850_zps7ca44440.jpg
 
I really like Babylon as the next target. I realize that means some peace time for the deal to finish, but if feel they just are to natural of a fit into our empire. Persia IMO will create a tougher border, and a hard supply line.
Not to mention I want that source of gems.
Plus after Babylon we could make a swing into Africa to own the whole continent.


ROSTER:
LKendter (on deck)
Todd Marshall
Greebley (just played)
CKS (up)
 
LKendter said:
I really like Babylon as the next target. I realize that means some peace time for the deal to finish, but if feel they just are to natural of a fit into our empire. Persia IMO will create a tougher border, and a hard supply line.
Not to mention I want that source of gems.
Plus after Babylon we could make a swing into Africa to own the whole continent.
Click to expand...

I will agree with this. Sistine is on our continent and close by (India has it) and it would be nice to get cathedrals and market places for the happiness. We also have only 2 universities and can use more. Pausing the wars for a bit to build this infrastructure and then get some more Muskets and Knights seems fine to me. I think it will help us more than grabbing cities quickly. We can't kill off civs easily so we have to starve them to reduce flip chances. This means they don't become science farms easily. Note that because we had Artemis our Culture is pretty good. We should keep it up.

[Edit: I also notice I didn't set Smolensk to a sensible build]
 
Looks like good progress considering. Nice that we are finally getting leaders. I had probably close to 20 elite wins with no leader on my set. Hard luck on that flip. That city proved to be a tough one for us to take, and then we had to retake it too.

I don't know who we would attack next if NOT Babylon honestly. They are (or were) falling just off the pace in tech, which will help. They have those gems, which we really need. A little peace time is not a concern. We could use it to build those expensive universities.

Regarding the war happiness thing, it might have been the loss of all those free temples, as we traded for Education that turn, killing Artemis on the IT.

EDIT: Also keep in mind that we'll shortly have the ability to trade overseas, which should give us a chance to get more luxuries, which we really need.
 
France and Russia are gone. Germany is down to one town, and we have an army there (but I expect China will take it this interturn). We can make some trades with the Americas this turn for luxes, but I have not done so. We should be able to pick up dyes and silks for obsolete techs pretty easily. We've got furs of our own.

I've moved some military toward Babylon, but we need to get defensive units for our new towns. We need workers; most of our new towns are not connected or only connected circuitously. I've been sending some workers that way, but we need more.

We've 48 cities; our nearest rival has 26. We are near the top in culture and score and the leader by far in power.

Turn log:

Turn 0: Swap a few builds. The save isn't consistent with some of Greebley's comments - Egypt does not have chemistry, for example, and the English cities haven't built their harbors.
IBT: Sword dies to E knight.

turn 1:
Kill a spear at Yakutsk. Kill 2 spears taking Cologne. 2 E knights kill archers. Kill spear taking Krasnoyarsk.
IBT: Sword suicides on MDI.

Turn 2:
Kill 2 spears, 1 sword taking Yekaterinburg. Kill 2 spears taking Yakutsk. Kill 4 spears taking Vladivostok. Kill 2 spears taking Salzburg.
IBT: Archer kills horse. Babylon declares on France.

Turn 3:
E knights kill 4 archers. Kill spear at Orenburg. Kill 3 spears taking Stuttgart. Kill longbow near Dijon.
IBT: Archer dies to hoplite.

Turn 4:
Kill 2 spears taking Orenburg and 2 cats. Kill 2 spears taking Dijon; kill longbow near it. Kill 2 spears autorazing Dortmund; get a leader. Make an army.
IBT: Learn chemistry, start metallurgy.

Turn 5:
Kill 2 spears and an archer taking Bryansk. Kill 3 spears taking Rouen.
IBT: nothing

Turn 6: zzz

Turn 7:
Kill 2 spears taking Grenoble.
IBT: Chinese kill off the French. Chinese learn astronomy, start Copernicus' Observatory.

Turn 8:
Kill 2 spears, 1 archer taking Tver'. Russia is gone.
IBT: Babylon declares on Germany.

Turn 9:
zzz
IBT: Egypt starts Bach's.

Turn 10:
Kill a spear at Brandenburg. I expect it to fall on the interturn.
 

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Sounds like great progress.

No idea how the save got different, but did accidentally hit end of turn after finishing at one point. My only guess is that I gave the save for the final turn but did final analysis off the game after the first IBT, which was not my intent at all.

I kind of wish they hadn't made end of turn enter or space or whatever it is.
 
Haven't looked at the save, but it sounds great. Looks like one more Knight war (Babylon) followed by overrunning everything with Cavs in in our future. Wonder if we'll finish this game off before tanks. Honestly, with the AI being so late settling Siberia (unless that has JUST changed) we're either going to have to settle a lot of remote places ourselves, or consider if conquest would be easier I think.
 
950 AD (0)
We can use a break in warfare as to many cities are empty. We aren't close to rails, so I would like at least one defender per city. Especially with our happy issues.

I agree China will take the German capital, so I make peace for $21 and 3 workers. They start mining by Athens to get the 20th shield.
(IT) I barely give in to Persia for Chemistry. If we were past the age of immortals, I would tell him to shove it.
China does wipe Germany, so I am glad I snagged those workers.
Summary:

One problem we have is all these Siberian cities, but no roads in the area. I've started working on it, but this will need at least another set or two to finish. Babylon has at least two cities marginally worth it in Siberia, and they are to far from our road net.

I've started to load the 4th knight into our armies.

Nothing happened during this set. I am just trying to add some buildings.

I'm not sure if we want to trade metallurgy. Do we really want to speed the AI up to cavalry?


ROSTER:
LKendter (just played)
Todd Marshall (up)
Greebley (on deck)
CKS
 
I see that I'm up. Today is my first full 10 hour day at work since the surgery, so I'm expecting to have about as much energy as a dead fish when I get off in 3.5hrs. I should get to it tomorrow. Without looking at the save, I wonder if it is worth starting a war immediately with Babylon (I'd think yes) or if we should just wait for cavs. Input welcome.
 
Babylon has cities at the edge of our empire in Siberia, and we lack roads in the area. I was thinking at least getting roads to those cities before the attack. We still lack defenders in that area.
 
LKendter said:
Babylon has cities at the edge of our empire in Siberia, and we lack roads in the area. I was thinking at least getting roads to those cities before the attack. We still lack defenders in that area.
Click to expand...

In that case, I may just build lots of muskets and ship them east and wait for Cavs. Again, haven't seen the save yet, but that would be my preliminary plan. Realistically, we've already won, it's now about how efficiently, quickly, and funly (if that's a word) we want to win.

I'm not as dead as I thought I would be (yet), so I will probably look things over tonite, and maybe play a little.
 
I usually don't trade around metallurgy either as having cav while the enemy does not really helps.

I would say that once our cities are defensible, then start the war. One can save up Armies and build knights to upgrade so you have Cav armies right away.

Prebuild for the mil acad often works well too for stronger armies.

Muskets are expensive and we can draft Rifles not too far in the future. I tend not to build a lot when cannon or knights for upgrade are attractive. Still defense is important. I have even cut the lines to saltpeter if I am really short on defenders (before cav that is, once cav exist I stay connected).

BTW, I once went through and calculated whether upgrading artillery units is worthwhile. It is not. With each one doing some fraction of a single hp each round, it turns out to be only worthwhile if swimming in cash - to do a single extra hp takes hundreds of gold. Artillery themselves with the longer range and double attack are a bit different. Usually though you get so many artillery attacking the larger AIs (at deity at least) I tend not to upgrade to them either. Also cannon are still useful even late because if you ping a bombarding boat and do a hp damage, they tend to go home and heal. You can even manipulate which square they attack using the fact that they only attack squares with defenders - clever use of this brings them within range 1 to use the short range earlier units. It is more effective for civs that are farther away by boat. as they spend more time going home and coming back. The bombardment doesn't usually do much damage but it can waste time in the interturn. This technique reduces the time watching enemy bombardment.
 
Are you sure it's THAT big of a deal to trade Metalurgy, because I can get at least 2, maybe 3 required techs (depends on who knows physics so far), plus several hundred gpt and luxuries for this by trading with the Chineese and Sioux, two people we're not going to war with for a bit (maybe ever in one case). By doing so we can stop running 20% luxury tax, increase science to 100% at a profit, and cut the research time for future techs by more than half. Cavs drop from 16 turns to 7. I need a lot of convincing that bolstering our economy that much is not worth the tradeoff.

I know killing other peoples cavs is a pain in the but sometimes, but this isn't going to get Babylon cavs in time, and realistically, whoever we tackle next (Egypt?) will probably have them by then either way. If not, whoever is after THAT surely will.

I'd considered cutting the saltpeter to make hoplites already, but if we're going to have cavs in 7 turns, it seems a bit late in the day. I'd definitely prefer two hoplites to one musket. Yes, we can draft rifles shortly. VERY shortly if we draw the long straw and get Nationalism for free. I haven't counted how many defenders we're short yet, but I don't think it's as many as I'd assumed.

I'm going to start play tonite, and finish either tonite or tomorrow night. Like I said, please convince me that it's not worth getting all that for Metalurgy, because I really think it is.
 
About half done. Military Tradition in 1. I do not intend to start the next war. Too late on my turnset with too little strategic advantage to do it. Will finish tomorrow.
 
Inherited Turn - Since CKS and I were ok with trading Metallurgy, and I was convinced it would do wonders for our economy, I pulled the triger. First thing to do was figure out what civ was the leader and therefore had the money... Ah, it's China. They have a zillion GPT (more than full price for Metalurgy!). No one else has more than chump change... That's not ideal, it just means we'll have to do this in a slightly different way.

Metalurgy to China for Astronomy and 255gpt. And now they mystery question is answered. Only China and Persia have Physics. So it's down to if I can make a deal with Persia for it. It does cost us a bit of cash, and I ordinarily wouldn't do this, but we don't want to trade our next tech, and we'll need Physics to select the tech we want to research after Cavs, so... Metalurgy, 36gpt and 12g to Persia for Physics. Astronomy and 86g to Zulu for Banking. Monotheism to Argentina for Dyes and 9gpt. Because they had some cash, not because I wanted the tech, Physics to Songhai for Incense, Music Theory, 29gpt, and 6g.

Luxuries off, Science to 100%. Mil Trad now says 8 turns, because the scientists are working... I go to a tundra village, hire one geek back, and viola, 7 turns :)

Looks like we have about 8 towns without defenders. Not as many as I was expecting. Change Athens to Musket, but leave Sparta on Knight so as not to waste a bunch of shields.

IT -
Thermopolae: Musket -> Musket
Rostov: Temple -> Barracks

1) 1060 - :sleep:

IT - Beijing completes Copernicus. Not the civ we'd have preferred to get more science.

2) 1070AD - :sleep:

IT -
Beijing: Musket -> Musket
Berlin: Courthouse -> Market
Sparta: Knight -> Knight
Konigsburg: Musket -> Musket
Delphi: Cannon -> Cannon

Egypt starts Magellans.

3) 1080 - The top 4 now have Navigation.

IT -
Hamburg: Musket -> Knight
Cornith: Musket -> Knight
Pharsalos: Musket -> Musket

4) 1090 - :sleep:

IT -
Tours: University -> Barracks
Hanover: Harbor -> Cannon

5) 1100 Physics to Sioux for Navigation (so we can trade WM), WM, and 1g. TM to Australia for WM. TM to Zulu for WM and 65g. TM to Venezuela for WM, 38g, and 6gpt. WM to Songhai for WM. 209g, and 4gpt, TM to India for WM, 3g, and 9gpt. to China for WM, 118g and 9gpt


IT
Athens: Musket -> Worker
St. Pete: Musket -> Cannon
Sparta: Knight -> Knight
Thermopolae: Musket -> Knight
Chartres: Barracks -> Duct
Knosos: Cathedral -> Knight

6) 1110- Collect about 200g and 20gpt doing map trades. I did more of this later in the set too, but just didn't note it.

IT - We learn Military Tradition, and set sail for Magnetism, due in 8. It's a faint recollection that the AI prefers to research ToG over Magnetism, probably because it has an associated wonder. Not that it seems absolute, just a feeling... If right, by the time we get Magnetism,, we can likely trade with someone for ToG. Our people want to build the Military Academy... which I've neglected to prebuild?! :wallbash: I read Greebley's thing and said to myself "of course I'm going to prebuild that, then proceeded to not do it... No excuses, sorry guys.

Athens: Worker -> Cavalry
Delphi: Cannon -> Cannon
Smolensk: Library -> walls

Sioux start Smiths.

7) 1120 - Several People now have Ecconomics. Lets hope they build Smiths on our side of the pond. Upgrade almost all of the non elite/non army filling knights to cavs. Per Greebley's suggestion, I do not upgrade trebs to cannons (which I've always wondered about anyway. Seemed a lot of expense for the benefit. Good to know going forward)

IT -Australia wants to trade WM. No reason to do that, so no.
Novgorod: University => Temple
Stutgart: Library => Courthouse (might be too corrupt to bother with it?)
Dijon: Library -> Courthouse (see above)

8) 1130 - Upgrade the last few non elite Knights (that I can find at least) Not sure what to do with the other 1200g. Maybe upgrade a few hoplites? I'll let the next player decide.

IT -
Lyons: Musket -> Musket
Konigsburg: Musket -> Temple
Cornith: Cavalry -> Cavalry
Yaroslavl': Courthouse -> Library
Avignon: Library -> Courthouse
Argos: Market -> Cavalry
Rhoades: Library -> Courthouse

9) 1140 - :sleep:

IT - Rostov: Barracks -> Musket
Tours: Barracks -> Market
Pharsalos: Musket -> University
Orenburg: Cannon -> Cannon

10) 1150 - :sleep:

Notes: Feel free to start the war any time. Hopefully the troops are not too far from where you want them. I kind of just added to the stacks Lee had already made along the boarders. Economically, we're doing great. We're down only Economics, but we're up Military Tradition. We'll have Magnetism in 5, hopefully first, and can trade for ToG and enter the next era if the AI has learned ToG by then. We should have plenty of cash and happy for the next set. After that... well, hopefully we can get rich with our free next era tech if needed.

I do feel the trades I made were fully justified. We went from break even, happy trouble, MT in 16 to getting 3 required techs, one of which we'd have had to research after MT, plus navigation and could research MT and Magnetisim in 17 total. I think we might have added one civ to the list of people with cavs when we fight them, and that sucks, but it was worth the tradeoff imo.
 

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