LK152 - the weak Venezuela

[Northern Pike]

View attachment LK152-550BC.SAV, end of turn

 

[Northern Pike]

750 (0): Caracas warrior --> worker. We build the warrior to let Caracas reach size six, because we'd rather produce workers there at 6 --> 7 than at 5 --> 6, for more commerce.


730 (1): Our curragh off the Siberian coast meets an Indonesian Bangka. They're only slightly ahead of us in tech and we could trade Writing for HBR, but it's pointless with the Great Library due soon. They have sixteen cities.

Ugh, here comes the demand. I don't fear that we can be beaten to the Library now, so we yield Literature to America.

Barinas warrior --> warrior, Coro spearman --> warrior. I like Tusker's idea of accumulating some veteran warriors to upgrade.


710 (2): Caracas worker --> worker.

 

[Northern Pike]

690 (3):

 

[Northern Pike]

DCYLA Great Library --> barracks, One Banana spearman --> warrior.


670 (4): We sell Literature to Russia for 512 gold and to the Aztecs for 166 gold, since it loses its value quickly.

Caracas worker --> worker, Panama temple (lumberjacked) --> galley, Coro warrior --> catapult, One Banana warrior --> warrior, Puerto Ayacucho temple --> barracks.

The Great Library brings in Mathematics, Philosophy, Code of Laws, Map Making, HBR, Polytheism, and Construction.


650 (5): There's no immediate financial benefit from our Great Library haul, as the only two known civs with gold, the Americans and the Aztecs, have all the techs we do.

DCYLA barracks --> warrior, Barinas warrior --> warrior, Three Banana barracks --> warrior.


630 (6): Caracas worker --> worker, DCYLA warrior --> warrior.


610 (7): DCYLA warrior --> warrior, One Banana warrior --> warrior.


590 (8): Caracas worker --> worker, DCYLA warrior --> warrior.


570 (9): We buy a worker from America for 124 gold.

DCYLA warrior --> warrior, Barinas warrior --> warrior, Coro catapult --> catapult, One Banana warrior --> catapult, Puerto Ayacucho barracks (lumberjacjked) --> harbour, Panama galley (lumberjacked) --> galley.


550 (10): Our first galley sets out on its journey to Europe.

Our curragh in Asia spots a Chinese border, on the mainland across from Japan.

 

[Northern Pike]

The prospect:

 

[Northern Pike]

The best feature of our situation, apart from the Great Library, is that the Brazilians are extremely backward. We can prepare our attack on them thoroughly, without worrying that we'll face pikemen if we wait too long, and we may well have the opportunity to attack spearmen with macemen if the Great Library serves us well.

We've just begun to hook up our iron mountain. Next turn we can add one of the two nearby workers to the job (not both, which would be inefficient), after which we'll have iron available on the fifth turn of the next round. At that point, assuming we leave DCYLA on one-turn warrior production until iron is hooked up, we'll have about fifteen veteran warriors available to upgrade to swordsmen. Most are in One Banana or Barinas at the moment.

Once we have iron hooked up we can MM DCYLA for two-turn production of swordsmen. We're beginning to build up our catapult force.

We've been building only two-turn workers in the capital (with MM required every time one is produced), and we can stay with that policy for a while. But going to war without settlers is always a bad idea, even if in this case we plan to keep Brazilian cities, so we should accumulate at least three before we attack.

Our Atlantic curragh is off Greenland, headed for Iceland and the two dangerous jumps (one turn at sea in each case) on the way to the British Isles and Europe. It only has about a 25% chance of surviving both jumps, but the reward would be so much greater than the loss (fifteen shields) that it's worth trying. We have a galley, which can make the jumps safely, just beginning the same trip. The galley Panama has just started is also intended for Europe, but can be cancelled if the curragh gets there.

We have a harbour build (not shown in the screenshot) going in Puerto Ayacucho, to take advantage of the forest clearance we'll naturally be doing there.

Whaledreams is also a good candidate for a harbour after its temple, as Greebley has observed.

 

[LKendter]

Glad to see the Great Library gambit worked.

The next issue is core size. 9 cities are not enough to do well pass the Great Library.
Brazil being backwards looks like the big break.
I agree with NP some settlers before war. Some cities may auto-raze. I want the spice city to be one of ours. I hate flips to begin with but resource / luxury flips are too much. Plus there could be an city with ugly overlap with Argentinian culture.

Do we want to build a settler and send the galley to the whale city? It looks like that small island is still available at this point. We already missed the Caribbean islands.
This spot may have at least one whale to use. I forget the exact square the city is in. It could be a good commerce source.

The big challenge is where the horses are. Our UU is cavalry based, so we want horses before military tradition. I could only spot one source way in South America, probably close to the Argentinian capital.
Normally the Americas get 3 luxuries. I can only spot spices and wines. We want to keep our eye out for the mystery resource.


ROSTER:

LKendter (on deck)
Elephantium
Northern Pike
Greebley (up)
Room for one more

 

[Northern Pike]

Do we want to build a settler and send the galley to the whale city? It looks like that small island is still available at this point.

I like this idea, but I'm reluctant to waste time with the galley when we've finally got it headed for Europe. I'd suggest that we speed up the build of our second galley in Panama, with a merge and perhaps later a pop-rush, and try to reach the Galapagos that way.

 

[LKendter]

ROSTER:

LKendter (on deck)
Elephantium
Northern Pike
Greebley (up) waiting for got it.
Room for one more

 

[Greebley]

Ok, I got it.

Sounds like I won't be starting the war.

Lee,
Do you want me to try to arrange units for a war near the start of your turns? 3 settlers and some Sword/Spear poised on the border?

Edit: we can discuss if we want to wait or not at the time. At least one sword will head north.

 

[LKendter]

This weekend will be bad for me, and play time. Do you think you can finish tonight? If not, I would like to swap.

I'm not sure if we will be ready for war after a 10 turn set.

I want at least 1 settler for the island, 1 settler to replace the spice city, and a least one spare. My gut says more depending on what we find. That alone taxes our capitol to the max when we also need workers.

If you want to start stacking up, my jump point would be the Brazil city with spices. I would also like roads up to that border.

I think the team is in agreement on war with Brazil, but what we haven't talked about is approach. Are we going to go for one big kill attack, or off / on war (get some wins, cities in peace, and repeat in 20 turns). This early and just swordsman, my gut says several short wars. A handful more cities may be all we need to open the FP.

 

[Northern Pike]

I'd rather stay at war until Brazil's destruction, because I don't like to do the work of wearing down an opponent's field army twice, and because flips while we have a peace treaty active are so troublesome. We don't have to make a firm decision now, though; if the campaign develops like our first American war in the last game, and after our initial successes the Brazilians just bring up too many units, we can make peace. The vital thing is that we should take at least two Brazilian towns in our first strike, so that we can have peace when we want it.

I agree that Brazil's spice town should be our first target.

 

[Elephantium]

I like NP's plan of taking 2+ towns ASAP and then signing peace only if necessary. I don't mind the work of wearing down enemy field armies, but I do like the idea of only doing it once if we can handle the attrition.

Oh, I'm also going to be busy this weekend - no time to play before Sunday night, perhaps Monday night.

 

[ThERat]

Hi there

Are you still looking for a 5th member? I could join if you take me...
If that's the case, I could take the game after Greebley as 5th in the rotation. In this case, I have a few questions. Do you play these games in republic taking WW as a necessary evil? What is the desired victory condition?

 

[LKendter]

Do you play these games in republic taking WW as a necessary evil?

Monarchy is pretty much the standard.

What is the desired victory condition?

Domination


ROSTER:

LKendter (on deck)
Elephantium
Northern Pike
Greebley (up)
ThERat (on deck)

 

[Northern Pike]

Rat, great to have you back.

Our workers in this game move by CCM rules but do their jobs at the standard C3C rate--that can be confusing at first.

 

[Greebley]

ThERat, nice to see you playing again. The Th always makes me think Theodore, so Theodore E. Rat.

I haven't played yet. I expect to get to it some tomorrow but probably finish on Saturday.

I think you want Monarchy on this map. If we tried republic, we have troubles getting through a war due to their length. Civs can be big and WW can take a big hit for the initial rush. Also taking out a civ quickly isn't usually possible with the huge scale.

It does make keeping up in tech troublesome however.

 

[ThERat]

I am glad, monarchy is the choice. It is a pain to manage WW with republic with such long drawn wars.

I have been following this SG from the start and followed the discussion, so I know what is the short term plan here. IIRC, the usual play was to hand over to me and I start a war

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: Looks good. We may need a Spear for an attack stack so I start one.
530 BC: Start the Galley toward Europe as stated.
510 BC: We have met China if we hadn't before.
490 BC: I switch Capitol to Settler so it grew to size 7. Didn't know a way around that.
470 BC:
450 BC: We connect the Iron. Upgrade 23 units for 1387 gold. Makes some trades for more gold (no gpt available). Russia knows Republic.
430 BC: We got hit by disease in One Banana. It must have started working a Banana.
410 BC: We know Monarchy
390 BC: We are in the next Era.
370 BC: Our accidental Curragh to Europe survives the first jump. Its now 50/50.
350 BC: Our road to start a war is complete.

Notes:
I have left unmoved 14 Sword, 2 Spear, and some Catapults and a Settler. We can use them all to attack the Lux city or Split into 2 forces to attack the other nearby City. We have swords defending the border cities. A few are between towns that are more than 3 apart to respond in either direction.
Remember that Catapults can't move through jungle. I connected to the Brazillian road that I think can get them to the Spice city.
I think my advice is to split this force in two and add the two regular Sword from the nearby town to the forces that don't have the Catapults. This turn we do the split and move both forces onto the border. Next turn ThERat can declare war.
I am in a bit of a rush to finish up so check trades and check the towns before hitting enter.
We have not revolted yet - we do have Monarchy. I was unsure with us on the brink of War.

 

[Greebley]

Ignore the bottom bart of the image. I overwrote another image with the picture and the other image must have been taller.

Oh for setters, we have one to get Spices, One on its way and the final in production.