LK149 - WM, Indonesia

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We scrape up about 500 gold from map sales, allowing us to rush Manado's temple.

We found Mataram to fill in a gap between razed Chinese cities.

We yield to an Australian demand for 30 gold and our TM.


1350 (8): We trample two more Chinese riflemen around Surakarta, and gain our first Great Leader of the round, who'll rush our third cav army, at which point we'll be eligible to build the Pentagon (34-2).

We found Cilegon near the ruins of Nanking, so claiming the local horses and restoring our ability to build cav.

We collect another 100+ gold from map sales. This process can be milked for a long time, if the player has the patience.

Our front line right now comprises four lightly held cities, with Chinese rail lines leading to all of them, but the Chinese seem gassed and we aren’t attacked.


1355 (9): We bombard and trample one Chinese rifleman and one Rider that straggle forward (36-2).

With three full-strength cav armies, we’re able to seize Hangchow from its garrison of four riflemen without loss, even though it’s a hill city (40-2). Razing the town yields us five workers, and we capture a cannon and a treb.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We found Kupang next to the ruins of Hangchow.

We let the Americans have Medicine for 176 gold and their WM—a tiny return, but every other civ has Medicine and the US may be gone in a few turns, so we might as well take it. We can only keep up with our need for settlers by rushing them in new towns with fast pop growth, so every gold piece helps.

We have to yield to a Russian demand for coal. I knew that Cathy lacked coal, but she’s broke and no deal was possible.

The Chinese seem to be almost too gassed—nothing is coming forward for our elites to attack.


1360 (10): We take a healing turn.


1365 (11): In scattered fighting we bombard and smite two Chinese riflemen and a Rider, gaining our second Great Leader of the round, who immediately rushes the Pentagon in Surabaya (43-2).

We take Shanghai without even having to call our third cav army into action (held by three riflemen; 46-2). We gain five workers from razing the city, and capture a cannon.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We found Ambon next to the ruins of Shanghai.

We capture three Chinese workers between Ambon and Beijing—one originally ours, since it turns into a native worker.

We extend our rain line all the way down the Malay peninsula to Tangerang, so all our cities in mainland Asia except Depok are now on the railnet.

With the conquest of Shanghai having gone so easily, we’re able to move our cav armies into position to attack Tatung without a healing turn.

Surabaya completes the Pentagon.


1370 (12): With the Pentagon built, we load a fourth unit into two of our three cav armies. I’ll keep one army galleon-mobile to preserve our options, although now that we’re rolling on the Asian mainland the Australian option isn’t attractive.

One of our lux deals expires, and we have to send the Sioux 35 gpt we can scarcely afford for furs.

Our cav armies storm Tatung, held by three riflemen and an LB, as usual without loss (50-2). We gain five workers from razing the city and another two by capturing a settler.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We found Sukabumi directly on the ruins of Tatung.

All along the front we expunge two riflemen, a Rider, and an LB, also capturing a cannon (54-2).

We’re informed that the Zulus have wiped out the Babylonians, and the Americans aren’t long for this world either. The civs backward enough to trade with us are being eliminated with amazing thoroughness, by the AI’s generally unsystematic standards.


1375 (13): We grind down a stack of four Chinese riflemen advanced towards Ambon (58-2).

The Persians make peace with the Chinese, after which eight Chinese units appear in our lands by rail, so we may have to postpone our advance on Beijing for a turn or two.

After various distractions, Palembang produces its first three-turn cav.


1380 (14): We trample all eight intruding Chinese units—three riflemen, three Riders, and two longbowmen—but lose a cav (66-3).

We move two cav armies adjacent to Beijing. The third has to heal, but will be able to contribute two attacks next turn.

We yield to a Sioux demand for 36 gold and our TM.


1385 (15): Our cav armies have a hard time at Beijing, but the garrison is light for an AI capital, and…

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

…we seize the city, striking down four riflemen and an LB (71-3). Razing the town gives us the usual five workers.

We unhorse two Riders at other points on the front (73-3).

The Sioux eliminate America, as predicted.

The Chinese and the Mongols return to war. That’s not good, since we don’t need help against China now, and the Mongols will undoubtedly poach some Chinese cities.


1390 (16): We found Cirebon on the ruins of Beijing.

We ride down three Chinese riflemen around Cirebon (76-3).


1395 (17): The Mongols have already been attacking the Chinese at Anyang, so the garrison is only three riflemen and we capture the city easily enough (79-3). We gain five workers from razing the town.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We pick off an isolated Chinese rifleman already redlined by Mongol cav (80-3).

Our German wines deal ends prematurely, for God knows what reason. We’ll try to hold out with three luxuries until we capture silks from the Chinese, at Canton.

The runaway Sioux begin Hoover, so they’ve reached Electronics.


1400 (18): My intention was to proceed systematically and raze Tsingtao before Canton, but with the Mongols advancing on Canton and its silks through New Nanking, we don’t have the time. So, we first found Cinnabon east of Anyang’s ruins, giving us access to both Canton and Tsingtao.

Canton is held by the first Chinese infantry we’ve seen, so the battle is ugly, but our two four-unit cav armies overcome the garrison of two inf and a rifleman and take the city (83-3). In this case we hold the city briefly and forfeit the five workers from razing, because positioning our settler for the replacement town would be too slow otherwise. We also badly need the gold from improvement sales to pay for two temple rushes, but in this respect we’re disappointed, as only the barracks and the courthouse survive our conquest.

We do however capture four workers, two trebs, and a cannon.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

The Germans establish an embassy with us—rather late for that.


1405 (19): Tsingtao still shows a rifleman on top, so we storm it without taking a healing turn (held by three riflemen and a guerrilla; 87-3). We capture a cannon and a treb and gain the usual five workers from razing the city.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We found C’estSiBon next to the ruins of Tsingtao, claiming our third source of horses, which may have some trade value with Germany.

We abandon Canton and replace it with Bonbon.


1410 (20): No Chinese units appear, so we take a healing turn.

We trade one of our two new silks to the Argentines for incense, getting back to four luxuries.

We can now reclaim our 383 gpt from Persia by renegotiating a cheap peace. I’ll discuss the trades we can make after this below, but won’t actually make them, to leave our options open.

Thirty-two elite victories this round generated two Great Leaders.

 

[Northern Pike]

Before:



After:

 

[Northern Pike]

We finally have some momentum, and if the world were just Eurasia and Africa, we’d win. Whether the Sioux reach the cultural victory condition looks to be beyond our control, though. They added 1438 culture points last turn, for a total of 125991.

Next turn all three of our cav armies will be at full strength. We should be able to raze Xinjian and New Tsingtao (both in Korea) soon after that, though we’ll need to be careful if they turn out to be held by infantry. We might beat the Mongols to Tientsin, too. Then we might want to use our galleon-mobile army as the basis of a force to take New Xinjian on Taiwan, since that town’s borders deny us some good tiles.

We have a full-strength army with all its movement in Cimahi which the next player can advance into Korea before hitting Enter, if he likes, though it shouldn’t attack this turn.

All our elite attack units are in Kupang, Tangerang, and Bandung.

We should rush temples in C’estSiBon and Bonbon as soon as we can afford it.

Before too long—perhaps at the end of the next round—we should merge native workers into Balikpapan, Pekanbaru, and Semarang until they’re all at the highest population we can keep happy. This shouldn’t wait until we’ve railed every tile in our empire.

We’ve been getting some settlers by building them every two turns in Djokjakarta, then merging two native workers into the city to restore the lost population. Jakarta is still producing a worker a turn. We can sometimes rush additional settlers in our fast-growing new towns, though money is tight.

Our home islands aren’t as defenseless against landings as they may look, since we can bring eight cav back at any time by a combination of rail movement and port-to-port ferries.

If I understand the situation correctly, we can’t attack the Mongols next, since their cultural total is the only thing keeping the Sioux from immediate victory. That leaves only the Persians as our next target, since I don’t think attacking into the dead end of Australia can help us now. The problem here is that we have to renegotiate peace with Persia to free up our 383 gpt (whether we initiate the renegotiation or wait for Xerxes to do it), so after doing that we’ll either have to attack dishonorably or wait twenty turns.

As far as I can tell, the Persians don’t have any MPP’s yet, which is important since we’re in the MPP era.

As mentioned, I haven’t yet made any trades, in case the team wants to consider self-research or a stealing strategy. But if we are going to keep trading techs, I’d suggest this sequence, of course before we hit Enter:

1. We renegotiate peace with Persia for a small lump sum, getting back our 383 gpt.

2. We sell Sanitation to Egypt for 81 gpt, 7 gold, and their WM. This gold has just become available after the expiration of Egypt’s last payment to us, and has to be grabbed immediately.

3. We buy Electricity from one of the advanced civs for gpt as part of a peace renegotiation, probably for about 400 gpt.

4. We send Electricity to Australia for Industrialization, and ideally ivory, as part of a peace renegotiation.

5. We send Electricity and Industrialization to Germany for Nationalism and at least 80 gpt, again as part of a peace renegotiation.

 

[LKendter]

I am surprised the Sioux wiped out America with them on Greenland. The AI usually isn't that good crossing water to kill a civ.

Getting another army and the Pentagon was a major improvement to our position.

It is great to finally have a natural luxury source. If we have spares, I hope it becomes another source to raise cash.

Off the top of my head peace with Persia is really tough to call. They are the only next logical target. I don't feel we are ready to attack them now, but I don't know if want to wait 20 turns. One option is to pause 20 turns to get factories in our large cities while we take out China island cities including Japan.
We may be to the point of keeping China cities. I can't tell without seeing the exact city count.

Another important thing with all this new cities is we can finally start upping our culture count. Getting 1/2 of the Sioux is unlikely, but I simply want to close the cap versus the AI to reduce flip chances.

The Mongols off limits due to culture really limits our options. One thing I can't tell is there any Sioux cities on our continent to wipe to reduce there culture some. We also have the debate to give the Mongols some of the very marginal China sites that would be disconnected from our empire.

Here is to hoping that we have a source of rubber in our captured area from China, since they had infantry.

ROSTER:
LKendter
Northern Pike (just played)
(skip to Jul 17, and Aug 1 to Sep 5)
Greebley (up)
Elephantium (on deck)

 

[Northern Pike]

We have one extra source of silks where Canton was, already traded to Argentina for incense. That's the equivalent of getting about 35 gpt for it.

The Sioux have three cities in extreme eastern Siberia facing Alaska, but they'd be very hard to reach. The Sioux are so far ahead in tech, and have so much gold to buy allies, that war with them is out of the question anyway right now.

The Mongols are doing an excellent job of taking outlying Chinese cities, so it's not something we have to arrange.