LK151 - WM, where are we?

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We begin preparing for the Venezuelan war, in particular planting forests so that our new tundra towns will be protected from Llaneros by an unbroken line of woods.


1040 (9): The Songhai have sent three stacks of junk units towards Timbuktu, and our luck turns spectacularly as we gain our second, third, and fourth Leaders/armies of the round in the ensuing slaughter. In all we strike down seven spearmen, three archers, and two swordsmen (148-5).

We storm the Songhai capital of Gao, defended just by two spearmen, and capture a catapult (150-5). We now have our own source of spices, just before our present spice deal with India expires.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We could take the final Songhai town of Koumbi Saleh this turn, but we’ll let them survive one more turn so that our elites can make a few more attacks.

We buy a worker from the Chinese for our WM and 10 gold, also acquiring their TM.

Venezuela declares war on Babylon. It may not mean much when they’re on separate continents, but it’s good to see our two main rivals at war.

We settler-abandon Gao, which was too close to Babylonian and Egyptian cities in Alaska.


1050 (10): We cut the science rate to 40%, with SciMeth still due in one turn.

We replace Gao with Captain Douglas.

We capture Zunguin, the Zulu island town in the Bering Strait, from its ample garrison of five Impis, two archers, and a maceman. We gain a settler = two workers and sink at least three galleys in port (161-5).

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We pick off the last eight Songhai units that we can see outside cities (five swordsmen and three spearmen), all with elites, but don’t gain another Leader (169-5).

We take Koumbi Saleh, held by four spearmen (173-5), also capturing three workers in and around the city. A little surprisingly, the Songhai remain alive; they probably have a settler on a galley, but they’re so weak culturally that flips shouldn’t be an issue.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We ride down an Australian archer wandering through the (former) Songhai lands for some reason (174-5).

We sell Electricity to Indonesia for 179 gpt, 140 gold, ivory, and their WM.

Fifty-five elite victories this round produced four Great Leaders—quite normal expectation, in the end, though achieved in a really frustrating way.

 

[Northern Pike]

The road to Caracas:

 

[Northern Pike]

We’re now at 20% of the world’s area and 17% of its population, up from 11% and 14% at the beginning of the round, and we lead in both categories with some expansions still to come. The upcoming Venezuelan-Sioux war should be our last real challenge in the game. After that we’ll roll over Europe and Africa, then add the remaining territory needed for victory simply enough, even if we have to fight Babylon in North America.

Unfortunately, Venezuela has an MPP and an RoP with the Sioux, but I don’t think this can or should change our plans. Geography requires us to fight one of those two civs now; we have a short common border with the Sioux, essentially just Detroit; and we’re strong relative to them, after they appear to have taken a beating in recent wars. We also have eight turns to run on an RoP with the Sioux, but I assume no dishonour attaches to us if we attack the Venezuelans and the Sioux declare on us.


Military

We’ll need two turns to get our armies and other attack units off Alaska and healed, and to receive some useful expansions in border towns. Then we should be able to attack Venezuela in 1080, or 1090 if CB prefers more thorough preparations. We have a lot of good choices, but I’d use Houston as our staging point and take the route straight north through Guiria, Canaima, and El Tigre to Caracas (see screenshot above). The cities on this path are closely spaced and on flat terrain, and Guiria doesn’t even have a cultural expansion.

We’ve seen a lot of Venezuelan units moving south and west to their wars in Africa, so the chances that we won’t have to deal with most of their Llanero force are excellent. We’re listed as weak relative to Venezuela, but that reckoning always underrates our armies and bombardment units.

Our distribution of units to garrison our border cities against Venezuelan and Sioux counterattack is reasonable, but not intended as optimal, so make sure everything’s the way you want it before we attack. Some tundra towns protected by forest may not need garrisons at all after they get their expansions in 1070.

We should plant a forest on Detroit’s cow tile, and build (and garrison) a fortress on the hill directly to its north, so that the city can’t be attacked by Llaneros or cav coming out of the fog.

Don’t overlook the Venezuelan enclave of New El Tigre, far behind our lines in Siberia. I haven’t garrisoned the towns around it because it’ll be more economical just to take it on the first turn of the war.

Our newly acquired city of Hobart sticks a long way into the Venezuelan borders in the tundra. I consider this an opportunity rather than a problem , but if you really don’t like the situation feel free to worker-abandon the town.

We should do a last check for any new MPP’s Venezuela may have before we declare war.

All four of our cav armies hold just three units at the moment, to keep them galleon-mobile, but we’ll want to bring them up to full strength for serious fighting against Venezuela. We have one asterisked elite cav to use for this (but only back on our continent!), in Alaska near Koumbi Saleh.

We have eleven Leader-eligible elites: four in the capital, three in Umfolozi at the eastern tip of Siberia, one on Zunguin Island in the Bering Strait, and three in Timbuktu in Alaska.

For most of the Venezuelan campaign we’ll be razing or replacing everything we take, so we’ve accumulated fifteen settlers, with more on the way. Of course we want to gain a lot of workers by razing Venezuelan cities, but until we’ve taken Caracas and a few other core cities, holding and replacing enemy towns will be fine if it’s tactically faster. The highest priority is to deliver a decisive blow quickly.

Please be sure our explorer is off Venezuelan territory before we declare war.


ToE and Hoover

We’ll discover SciMeth this interturn, after which Fortaleza should switch from the palace pre-build to ToE, due in five or six turns, and Brasilia should switch from its army to the palace as a Hoover pre-build. (We can’t be late on this or we’ll actually build the army.) We can’t research anything in the short time remaining before we’ll have ToE, so we should just do single-geek research on Atomic Theory, and then take Electronics as the second yield of ToE, as usual. The Babylonians and Egyptians are working on ToE, but Babylon isn’t using a strong enough city and Egypt started too late, so there’s no apparent danger to our build.

The food shortage in Brasilia will need to be corrected in a few turns, probably meaning the Hoover build will take five turns rather than four after ToE, but that shouldn’t matter.


Builds

Rio and Artie Nielsen will peel off settlers to empty their full food boxes this interturn, and Claudia Donovan should do the same after its rifleman. Artie Nielsen should then be worker-merged back up to size twelve immediately, since it doesn’t get fast pop growth when set for 27 spt.


Alaska

Finally, we need to do a few things next turn to wrap up our operations in Alaska:

1. Zunguin, Jenne, Timbuktu, and Captain Douglas should all rush what they’re building now.

2. Once our cav have evacuated the area, we should abandon Koumbi Saleh, without replacement. This site is too flip-prone to be worth keeping.

3. A native worker should join the three already cutting down the forest east of Timbuktu. This will complete the chop and make the first three workers available for railing.

 

[LKendter]

I was a bit surprised by how many tactical towns we built. I didn’t think we were under that much time pressure for conquest yet.

3 civs almost wiped in a ten turn round? Were you trying to set a record of some sort?

ROSTER:
LKendter (on deck)
Greebley
Northern Pike (just played)
CommandoBob (up)

 

[Northern Pike]

I was a bit surprised by how many tactical towns we built. I didn’t think we were under that much time pressure for conquest yet.

My philosophy there is that as long as we're producing settlers easily and abundantly, which we are, additional cities are never bad. They all contribute unit support, population, and a little gold, and build up shields for eventual rushes. It would be different if the world were so huge that we had to worry about spacing our cities efficiently to achieve domination; but this map, though large, isn't on that scale.

 

[Greebley]

Good to see we got some Cav Armies out of it.

Babylon has Rep Parts and we don't right? Hopefully we can use Atomic Theory to trade for it.

I think we want to aim for transports as we won't be able to move our armies cross sea once they return from Alaska otherwise and will likely need to take some of America for the final win. This means keeping science up and setting up research farms in corrupt cities.

 

[Greebley]

I thought about draining all Babylon's gold and going for a steal for RP, but then I realized we actually want to push the tech pace faster, so stealing isn't the best alternative to do that. We have Electronics to trade as well so keeping all money on research by doing it ourselves (after we have electronics) or having Babylon research with what they have after the trades is likely best.

As we take out Ven towns, I think we want to maximize growth for now, and then hire more scientists in the future. Choosing sites that don't need Aqueducts will also help.

Keeping Ven towns and killing them off entirely is actually the best research choice, but I am not sure that is easy to do. Note that we don't care if they flip if we put conscript or no troops in them. Taking cities and keeping them is by far the best science alternative.

This all assumes that we will take out our continent before we get transports which seems a reasonable assumption, unless the Babylons are more ahead than I know.

 

[LKendter]

but then I realized we actually want to push the tech pace faster,

What advantage do you see in pushing the tech pace?
Outside of transports to eventually get armies overseas, I think we have everything we need to win right now.

 

[CommandoBob]

Got it.

I like the idea of starting in Houston and rolling north over Caracas. I have always thought that Houston was a good place to come from.

I don't know why, but capturing Timbuktu always seems a bit special.

 

[LKendter]

I don't know why, but capturing Timbuktu always seems a bit special.

Must be a military man...

U.S. Marine Corps Hymn (Marine Hymn)


From the Halls of Montezuma
To the Shores of Tripoli;

 

[Greebley]

Um nothing outside of transports. It just that we will be unable to use Armies to attack Babylon once we start this war with 4 units in each army. I expect we may end up delaying the win until we can get our armies to places off continent, so the time to transports will be the determining factor and not how fast we can conquer.

I could be wrong and conquest is longer than I think and transports closer than I think.

 

[CommandoBob]

Monarchy
60% Tax
40% Science
00% Luxury

8365 gold, +1616 gpt

Scientific Methods in 1 turns.

City Builds

1. Too many to list here.

City Build Recap
05 Cavalry
07 Workers
40 Settlers
03 Temples
02 Aqueducts
26 Cannon
06 Library
04 Courthouse
01 Army (Brasilia)
04 Banks
07 Rifles
01 Palace (Fortaleza)
02 Galleon
06 Market
03 University
01 Wealth (Koumbi Saleh)

Resources
04 Coal
06 Saltpeter
05 Iron
05 Horse

Luxury
06 Wines
01 Furs
08 Dyes
01 Incense (Aztecs, 7 turns)
01 Spices
01 Ivory (Indonesia, 20 turns)

City Count
117 Brazil (LK151 People)
067 Babylon
054 Venezuela
033 Egypt
031 Indonesia
030 China
030 Russia
028 Sioux
024 Aztecs
012 India
012 Persia
009 France
004 Argentina
002 Zululand
??? Australia
??? Songhai

Gone: America
Gone: Mongols


Military
007 Settler
080 Worker CCM
193 Slaves
001 Explorer
003 Warrior
001 Swords
001 Musket
009 Knights
049 Rifles
049 Cavalry
015 Catapult (captured)
52 Cannon
29 Cannon (captured)
01 Galley
05 Frigates
14 Galleons
07 Army (3 Knight, 4 Cavalry)
16 Mace
05 Trebuchet (captured)

Current Units: 295
Allowed Units: 326
Support Costs: 000 gpt

We are Weak compared to:

• Venezeula (Monarchy)
• Babylon (Democracy)

We are Average compared to:

• Egypt (Democracy)
• Indonesia (Democracy)

We are Strong compared to:

• Russia (Monarchy)
• Argentina (Despotism)
• Shonghai (Republic)
• China (Republic)
• Austrailia (Republic)
• Zululand (Republic)
• France (Despotism)
• India (Democracy)
• Sioux (Monarchy)
• Persia (Democracy)
• Aztecs (Monarchy)

We are at War with Zulu, Sonhai and Austrailia.
We are at peace with everybody else.

Wonder Races

• Theory of Evolution
  • Thebes, Egypt
  • Konigsberg, Babylon

Notes
All of our cities are railed.

Plan to segerate workers from slaves for task assignments. I find the tasks easier when all the units are the same; fewer Worker Turn calculations to do.

Make ready for war; rail to the front lines.

See some rails inside Venezeula.

What about a city on the Iron NW of Detriot? If the Sioux do declare war on us after we start in on Venezuela, we have blocked them from sending untis through San Diego to menance/pester us. Instead, they will have to up and around the Caspian Sea, spending time and movement inside Venezeula and possbily blokcing Venezeulan units. And it would put Phoenix behind the lines. Even if we did capture San Diego, Phoenix could be hit by Cavalry. With this new city, the Sioux would have fewer targets.

Venezeula has Silks, but none are near our borders. The closest are around Acarigua, which is halfway between Caracas and Hobart. There are also Silks West of Caracas that we might be able to grab. Anyway, we don't need them for 7 turns, when our Incense trade with the Aztecs ends.

I'm not too concerned about Hobart's location. Once the core cities are gone it is nice jumping off spot for a number of fringe tundra cities that can produce settlers for us.

Plans
I don't see anything that really improves on what Northern Pike said. Get the Armies home, healed, and humbly magnificent. Swap the prebuids around to get ToE and Hoovers. Start a war or two. Raze/replace some cities. And generally make the world safe for Brazilian Monarchy.


Worker Tasks
Mostly support our advancing armies with lots of railroads.

Next City Builds

• Generally, unit builds will follow unit builds.

 

[Northern Pike]

See some rails inside Venezeula.

I got the impression from watching Venezuela's moves on the interturn that they have numerous railed tiles, but not a complete network yet. So this is the ideal time to attack them.

I like your idea of founding a buffer city NW of Detroit.