LotR26 Mounted Mongols

[Jabah]

Is ragnar also at war with Pacal ? (I guess yes)..
He might be the one taking all the heat.

 

[darrelljs]

Bummer...that's one of the better changes in Bhuric's patch. You know, I bet by the time the game comes around to me we can have stolen Feudalism, lightbulbed Philosophy and researched Machinery .

Darrell

 

[Arathorn]

Roster:
Arathorn -- on deck
darrelljs
Jabah -- out 3/15 - 3/22
Ozbenno
Kylearan -- UP NOW

Couple bad breaks there -- the longbows being the biggest bummer. We probably should have seen the vassalization to Pacal coming. It's the natural and intelligent move.

Thoughts/suggestions/random ideas:
- Adopt Buddhism and start spreading it. Get into OR for the building boost (wish that would've been done before the forge whips, but, oh well). Spread it, since we have the shrine.
- Continue to pillage and dance with Pacal (remember tha keshiks ignore terrain movement penalties) until we can sign peace. Maybe try to grab the iron/cows city in the north, from Charlemagne, if we can. It'll just make our borders cleaner.
- Focus on courthouses, specialists, and new cities for the next few turnsets, while we work on knights. Meanwhile, we need to decide on our next foe. I think we have two choices -- Ragnar or Pacal. Qin's a remote possibility. Pacal is closer, but he could be a religious buddy. I don't know who has better lands. We should discuss this, so we're ready, once we get Guilds. It might also guide our expansion a bit. Right now, I'm weakly voting for Ragnar, to have only one (admittedly very large) front. Plus, we can spread Buddhism there for more cash, whereas it's already spread in Pacal's land.
- I really don't think Delhi needs/wants a monument. OK, maybe for the +1 happy, but it's getting 5 cpt from being a religious founder city. I think the shrine adds, too. We'll grab some tiles back from Bombay, eventually. I don't think 1 cpt helps in that at all.
- What to do with EPs? I agree with putting them against Charlemagne before. But, now, it seems that won't be helpful. Pacal and/or Ragnar seems the most obvious choice. And don't forget we need to build some spies, for inciting revolts to help in capturing cities in the next war.

Arathorn

 

[sooooo]

lurker's comment: D'oh! So Pacal gave Charlemagne all his techs (including feudalism) when he became his master?

 

[darrelljs]

- Adopt Buddhism and start spreading it. Get into OR for the building boost (wish that would've been done before the forge whips, but, oh well).

Yeah...if we double swapped into Rep/Slavery, then OR should have been free.

I vote Pacal because the $#@% vassalized our punching bag .

I haven't had a chance to look at the save, but one way to recoup all the EPs we've invested into Charles is to steal Feudalism. Generally, stealing techs is more efficient, even if we need to use the slider or some Spy specialists it would probably be a good idea. Once we start working on Guilds we swap the EPs to Pacal (or whoever). I'd say we want 6-8 Spies on hand before declaring.

@sooooo - good question!

Darrell

 

[Jabah]

lurker's comment: D'oh! So Pacal gave Charlemagne all his techs (including feudalism) when he became his master?

I am not sure about giving (for free).
Both Pacal and Charlemagne were quite advanced but in different fields, so they probably just exchanged tech. (not sure since I haven't seen the tech situation after all the last trades)

 

[Kylearan]

I see the game, but have no time to comment at the moment. Will do so tomorrow (in about 15 hours).

-Kylearan

 

[Ozbenno]

I took the EP weighting off Charlemange once it was obvious we weren't going to attack.

Once I saw the monument in Delhi, I swapped it for a granary.

Once we're closer to Guilds and have pushed out our borders peacefully, it will be more apparent who to go after but at this stage Pacal would be getting my vote.

 

[darrelljs]

Okay, had a chance to load up the save. Pacal is asking for Turfan for peace. He is not interested in Pataliputra but he will settle for Code of Laws. There really isn't any rush to take this, I suppose. Qin will trade Feudalism + 60g for Code of Laws, Aesthetics and Currency. A bit pricey, especially considering CoL and Currency are monopoly techs. I don't see any rush for that one, either. Peter is willing to trade Literature + 50g for Currency and I would consider that one. The Great Library is possible with our good production and it would be a major boost with Representation.

Darrell

 

[Ozbenno]

Okay, had a chance to load up the save. Pacal is asking for Turfan for peace. He is not interested in Pataliputra but he will settle for Code of Laws.

How embarassing :blush. I checked at the beginning of the turn and he wouldn't talk. I killed a longbow, axe, scout and stole a worker during the turn and didn't check again.

The Literature trade seems promising. We only have one library currently (in a production poor city) but I started one in the capital (will take 5 turns).

Peter (I think) has CoL, so that's not a monopoly tech.

 

[Kylearan]

I played 16 turns, to make the numbers even again.

De Gaulle is at war with Pacal, too? Must have missed that. I danced around and pillaged some tiles in Pacal's lands, and had a situation at Turfan when Charlemagne sent two longbows and the city was only guarded by a single chariot. I had to move two Keshiks away from the barb city to protect Turfan, and couldn't attack the longbows because they were on a hill. They killed one of our keshiks in the attack. Our spy got caught as well unfortunately - here's why.

We're catching up nicely though. After killing a sword and a longbow from Pacal, he was finally willing to talk peace.

His peace lasted only for a few turns though, as Ragnar declared war on him in 295AD again. In addition, Charlemagne went souvereign again in 265AD.

To improve relations and get some money, I sold wheat to Qin for 2 gold and to de Gaulle for 2 gold. I also sold Ragnar Fishing for 55 gold, and later Sailing for another 90 gold, and did the Literature trade darrell had proposed. I did not do the feudalism trade as I think the price is too high.

My efforts to improve relations were thwarted by this:

Ah well. At the inherited turn, I also adopted Buddhism and switched to Organized Religion. Karakorum was reconfigured to higher production and, after growing, set on a starvation diet to finish the library and start the Great Library. This, plus chopping of two forests, nearly completed it: It will be finished in 3 turns.

The barb city finally grew to size 2.

I also built us a worker, a missionary, and a settler which is on the way to the northwest. Another worker and settler are in production as well.

Qin and de Gaulle are building an army!

Here's an overview shot of our empire.

Where do we want to found the next cities? The spot where the keshik is now would claim three flood plains, the oasis and the sheep, making it a very nice city, but would mess with the locations of further cities. I'm not very good at dotmapping, I always found cities on a one-by-one basis, which is probably not the best method...

I haven't touched the espionage settings, and we need spies again too. It will be interesting to see who Qin and/or de Gaulle will attack, and how the Ragnar-Pacal war plays out - all this might have an impact on our decision of who to attack next.

Here's the save.

Roster:
Arathorn -- UP NOW
darrelljs -- on deck
Jabah -- out 3/15 - 3/22
Ozbenno
Kylearan


-Kylearan

 

[Jabah]

Here is my dotmap and reasons ...
- Green + Red : seems to be the best use of the 'free' land. NB (afterthought) Since I intend to give the sheep to Blue, both cities could be moved 1E, but not sure if it will be much better. (we globally 1 hill while gaining a grassland).
- Pink : desert-hill-sheep is only 2 foods, so pay only for itself, as well as the river plain (deforrested and farmed). In order to work to gold and fur (or a windmill), we need to steal and farm the rivergrassland from horse city. Size 7 city (3 sheep, plain, grass, gold, fur).
- Blue : plain-hill-sheep is 3 food, as well as the river grassland that must be deforested and farm to be able to work the 2 silver. Size 4 city (sheep, grass, 2 silver)

Jabah


PS - We should also settle (one of) the wines, (wines are NE of the Iron by barbarian city// NE of Copper by Gaul), as we have none of that ressource

 

[Arathorn]

Nice turns, Ky. Grabbing Agra would have been nice, but probably impossible with longbows running around. We just need to get knights. Then we can do a little more whomping.

I like the dot map Jabah proposed. Seems pretty good (and better than I would probably do). I'm not sure about founding a city to get wines. Phoenician's culture will get us wines once it grows twice. A city founded to get wines feels like it would be just half a city, if that, wedged in. With Rep and a shrine, that could pay for itself easily, but I'm not seeing the rush to do it.

As for order, even though pink dot is probably the weakest of the dots, it helps seals borders and might be one of the earlier ones I found. Missionaries are good, too. Beyond that, I'm probably going to continue the infra push, in buildings and workers.

Arathorn

 

[darrelljs]

Nice turns Kylearan. It is interesting to watch different players' styles. I would not have traded away those resources for such little gold, unless the AIs already had them. You also use the graphs way more than I do, I wouldn't have noticed the military build-up until Qin/de Gaulle declared on me .

Those desert Sheep tiles are only 2F, they are slow growers, so pink and blue are purely for the resources and border integrity (at least before Bilogy). I'd skip blue, since it looks like Beshbalik will get Silver on its next border pop. Red and Green are worth having at this point in the game, so I guess Pink -> Red -> Green would be my $0.02.

Darrell

 

[darrelljs]

BTW, I won't be able to play this weekend, in case Jabah wants to swap.

Darrell

 

[Jabah]

It is not really only to "have access" to silver/gold that I would settle those cities (they might be better place for that), but to "work" the silver/gold as it is a very good option for high commerce at low cost.

Also Beshbalik next border pop will be in around 100t (it just poped its 150culture at 8cpt), so waiting for silver that way is not optimal

 

[Kylearan]

Agra was impossible to get - garrisoned by 4 (or 5? I forgot) longbows with CG1/2 on a hill, plus a spear. I think even attacking with all keshiks we have wouldn't have cracked that nut. This makes our borders very awkward, which knights should remedy rather sooner than later.

Regarding the resource trades, that's something I always do: Trading away health resources for at least 2gpt, to improve relations (and the money doesn't hurt as well). I never trade away happy resources though. My reasoning is that health isn't the problem at that stage of the game, especially not for the AIs, but it helps immensely to get the diplo bonus earlier ("years you've supplied us with resources" and "fair trades"). Sometimes I even gift an AI a health resource if it has no money available and I think relations to that AI are important. All this reasoning is only based on a gut feeling though. It seems to work well for not getting attacked; judging from the RB events my games seem to be more peaceful than other's.

The dot map looks good! Thanks for doing this, Jabah.

-Kylearan

 

[darrelljs]

It is not really only to "have access" to silver/gold that I would settle those cities (they might be better place for that), but to "work" the silver/gold as it is a very good option for high commerce at low cost.

Post Biology, sure. Before that, there isn't enough food to grow past size two unless my eyes doth deceive me.

@Kylearan - I definitely believe you, I just never think to do it in my games .

Darrell

 

[Arathorn]

We should discuss Heroic Epic a bit. I'm thinking capital will be our best producer for quite a long time. So put HE there and crank troops -- chariots for a while, as "defenders" and then knights, once we get the tech? Or should we go for more of a commerce capital and put HE somewhere else (Beshbalik with its iron? ???)?

Once Turfan finishes its food builds (settlers and workers), we need to get some specialists going there.

Overall, though, this is looking pretty happy.

Arathorn

 

[darrelljs]

I think Beshbalik should be HE. It has two Horse, two plains Hill, and the Iron, combined with enough food to work all five tiles. Looking at the city I'm not sure why we farmed a plains tile and cottaged any of the grassland tiles . Karakorum is a close second call, but really it will be building infrastructure as well. Beshbalik already has all the buildings it will ever need.

Darrell