LotR6 - Progressive Paranoia

[Arathorn]

Whee!!! Golden Age! Rails! Factories coming soon. Massive income. A windfall of wonders. A number of Sipahi still around.

I will continue to put the hammer down on England. We want Lizzie eliminated, so we don't have to worry about continual flips.

Still, I semi-expect to have a builder's turn, with factories, universities (we're going to need/want to do SOME of our own research), banks taking high priority, but hopefully a number of sipahi also to be produced. 17 is great, but it's probably not enough to finish off England, since Korea apparently got Nationalism as a free tech.

I'm not worried that Lizzie is GA now, though. With all those wonders, she surely got it before (I think Colossus does it all by itself). She's probably toast already.... Might take a long time to finish her off, though.

Got it!
Arathorn

 

[Gothmog]

Nice turn! London is much too nice a city to be under English rule. We want to move quickly while we can still thump on as many muskets as possible (ammap).

Here's my favorite line:"Nothing much. Newcastle deposes our rule."



Arathorn, your welcome to leave me some scraps of the English to mop up (I'm next, yes?). GA is infrastructure time.

 

[ControlFreak]

lurker's comment:
Arathorn@
Great Lighthouse does english Golden Age.

England is Commercial and Expansionist.
She had Expansionist wonder (Colussus)
She needed one of the Commercial wonders:
Lighthouse, Magellans, Smiths, UN

 

[JMB]

Arathorn,

I don't think it will take all that long to finish England off (other than perhaps ferrying our troops over to her island). We should be able to take out her remaining 3 big cities on our continent within 1-2 turns.

Quote: "but hopefully a number of sipahi also to be produced..." Actually, I took most of our cities off of Sipahi production recently. Most are however ~2 turns from completing whatever they were working on, so they can be put back if necessary.

JMB

 

[Skyfish]

Very good turns JMB

Arathorn I dont believe we neet that many more Sipahis right now actually, we should use our GA to build the infra JMB started on...what we need is cannons/arts I would say.

 

[Arathorn]

JMB's lost 15 sipahi already, going against a lot of muskets and mostly conscript rifles. I fail to see how ~17 sipahi are going to be enough to take out the rest of Lizzie's 10ish cities, plus re-capture flipped cities, plus make the necessary landing(s) on her island(s), plus fight off any possible Mongol incursions -- especially since she'll have time to build vet rifles by the time we're all in place.

Yes, it will be infra focus, but I will also be building a fair few sipahi to allow us to continue forging onwards.

Were we planning on trying to eliminate Korea before tanks as well? Waiting for infantry to do that? More troops are useful for that reason, too.

Arathorn

 

[Gothmog]

My preference would be to go at Korea with Siaphi (and cannon) vs. Rifles. We could wait for arti but that's a ways off. Our first priority has to be England, including their other island and that might take a bit of time. No worries though, Siaphi + arti will take out even infantry. IMO, tanks are too far off. I am hoping you will leave me with a nice force to play with.

 

[T-hawk]

Nice turns JMB? I'd like to think I had something to do with it No, seriously, nice turns JMB!

I peeked at the save. MM note: Boston's good for a worker every turn here in Golden Age, but won't have enough shields to do so once the GA ends. Ditto with Aydin (it's too corrupt.) Well, the pair of them is still good for another 20 workers before the GA ends, then maybe Boston can still be coaxed to do so by giving it a aqueduct so it can work 6 tiles and auto-grow onto the 7th. (A problem is that at size 5, it must have an odd number of food surplus, so it has to run +11 food and waste one.)

MM note #2: Swap some city to a Palace so that it can prebuild its factory, then have that city build coal plant and Universal Suffrage. Edit: On further review, Uskudar can get this done the soonest, so I'd do it here. Oh, and scrap that Military Academy; we aren't going to be investing 400 shields for armies anytime soon. (Actually, leave the build order there to prebuild Istanbul's Factory; maybe that's what it's already for.)

Less micro note: Do we want to consider a Palace move to London if/when we have a Leader available to do so? Istanbul and Edrine can survive as second-ring cities (get them courthouses ahead of time); Uskudar and Gems will be barely viable, and anything north of there will be terminally corrupt. But, in time, that gets us 6 first- and 6 second-ring cities over in England, for productivity that just might be needed in the Always War Modern Age.

England does have rifles; it'll take at least 20 turns to actually finish her off from now. Good thing she doesn't have any faraway cities. Korea might help a bit, maybe we can leave Oxford for them. (Too bad we can't offer Korea a RoP to help them get to their targets...)

As for attacking Korea: We need infrastructure; not before artillery, but quite possible with them before tanks.

 

[JMB]

T-hawk,

I did give you credit for the excellent setup at the beginning of my posts... p)

Anyways, the Mil Academy being built in Istanbul is a prebuild for a factory and was noted as such.

Even though England has rifles, she isn't really producing that many. The last couple of cities were defended mainly by muskets and perhaps a conscript rifleman. I think we might be able to finish Liz off in about 10 - 12 turns.

JMB

 

[Arathorn]

Initial review: Raise science to get Industrialization in 4 @ slight loss. Capture Cantebury with no losses. Lose 1 sipahi taking Hastings. Warwick was on a hill and took two sipahi deaths to capture. England now down to one city on the main continent.

Edrine as US contender is established. Working on Palace now.

(I) Temujin comes asking for peace. Seeing no reason to continue the war (our rep is trashed, we're not interested in his lands right now, etc.), I go ahead and accept. Sure, it breaks some treaties, but our word is mud anyway. And it's not like we're going to be doing any more wheeling and dealing...

Mongols and Japs make peace, too. Koreans capture Oxford and the English are down to their island...5 cities. Looks like France captured a city there, too. Brits bombard the shores, but we really don't care.

England and Mongols make nice soon thereafter. As do France and Mongols. Temujin the peace-maker????

(3) 880 - France and Korea MPP. That'll make things more...interesting in a few turns. Industrialization comes in, so factories start Ottoman-wide. We begin researching.... ummm.... well... Nationalism is the cheapest, but I'm not sure we need rifles at this point and I want to be surer of ToE, so we go after Medicine.

By 890, we're finally ready to start capturing cities on the British Isles. Brighton falls, only costing one sipahi to a vet and a regular rifle.

900 -- Aztecs come calling to extend our peace treaty. Sure, I agree. No prob. Next war will be Korea (and, apparently, France). I'll leave the other continent alone now. I'm happy with that.

AARRGGHHH, though, as France cancels our Furs + 4 gpt for Ivory deal. And Korea cancels 91 gpt for saltpeter and Furs. Scroll-ahead prevents disaster. Spices go bye-bye in 910. Happiness is getting ugly.

In 920, the Aztecs destroy the English, eliminating our flip worries!!! YAY!!! CHEER!!! [dance] And I only built one sipahi. A few muskets to start defending areas, though.

The rest of the turns were spent on factories and railroads, plus trying to end as many revolts as possible. A few cities in old England are actually going to be productive for us, once we get courthouses and a few buildings in place.

The GA is due to end ASAP. Medicine is mostly researched, so it should be completed. At that point, I dunno. We've got a couple very productive cities (none with coal plants, though, as Universal Sufferage came via GL rush). Standard pre-build tactics should get us ToE.

Be alert for sleeping artillery, if the need arises. The Ottomans are at peace with the world, but many sipahi eyes are greedily eying Korea. With our superior productivity, we could drive them into the sea, and getting the 4th luxury would be nice. BUT, they have a MPP with France, who's pretty strong, and we still have TONS of infra to build. We're apparently first to rails and to factories, which should be a huge boon.

Good luck, Gothmog!

Arathorn

 

[T-hawk]

Great turn once again! Two civs down, five to go!

Next research - how about a beeline for Replaceable Parts? Let's get artillery going, and the timing on that should be just about right to complete the rest of our infra and attack Korea (their MPP with France might even expire by then, since 7 turns have already gone by.)

 

[Arathorn]

Hey, how about a save game?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr6-950ad.zip

I'm awfully tired to have forgotten that.

Gothmog is up, too, I should mention.

Oh, and we have Sistine now, so it's probably well worth our while to crank out a number of cathedrals. We're paying 20% in lux tax now and that probably won't be enough once the GA ends.

Arathorn

 

[Skyfish]

So I wasn't *that* far off when saying we don't need that many more Sipahis no ?

 

[JMB]

Nice turn Arathorn!

JMB

 

[Gothmog]

Alright, no England. Looks like I'll be setting up for a war on Korea. I haven't looked at the save yet but my feeling is that a beeline to RP and Arti while building infrastructure is the thing to do. That is if I can hold back our bloodthirsty Sipahi

'got it'

 

[Gothmog]

Played just the first couple turns last night. It's not easy being tactless, we have lots of trading opportunities - techs others don't have, valuble resources and luxuries - but we are the ones who don't know how to ask.

Our armies are quite small, we had just the right size for taking out England it seems. Factories are starting to be built and other infrastructure is following quickly. I've pumped up some core cities to size 12. My current inclination is to go for RP before Evolution, looks like we're basically the tech leaders as it stands and we should be able to get ToE any way we slice it, but going for RP first will allow us to take out Korea sooner. Of course electricity @1st is going to take a while to research. Any opinions on when to go for Sanitation? I would say beeline to RP first, but having just finished medicine we could take a little bypass to sanitation.

Edit: Oh and I happened to notice that Korea doesn't even have Coal. There is a former English city on their border w/it though and I think that is making them quite ancy. Shouldn't be too hard to make them declare on us.

 

[T-hawk]

Don't bother with Sanitation. Our core cities are all crammed together; cities like Uskudar are barely even managing 12 tiles to work. New York and Atlanta are about the only two cities we have that would benefit significantly. I'd say we can leave Sanitation for quite some time - after ToE/Hoover, and even after Nationalism and Espionage that I think we will want.

 

[Gothmog]

Preturn – We’re at peace with the world, our military is small. Time for infrastructure! Korea has no Coal.

(IT) Korea and Mongols make peace. No current wars. Our GA ends.

(1) 960 AD – MM Istanbul upto 50 spt. Pump Kafa upto size 11 (grows to 12 next turn), Adana and Miami get a few merges too. Usulkador upto 40 spt for a Cannon every turn.

…. Building building …. Mining over some irrigation ….

Medicine comes in, set to Electricity due in 19 (we could get Nationalism quicker)

(4) 990 AD – turn off one worker farm, consider other. We’re almost totally improved and have lots o’ workers.

(IT) Aztecs and France sign MPP.

(5) 1000 AD – Turn off other worker farm, start aqueduct there.

(7) 1020 AD – 2 Korean workers enter our core, presumably headed south of Miami.

Notes: A true builders turn, completed lots o’ temples, libraries, universities, and factories. Also one Coal plant (Edrine). No prebuild started yet for ToE because Electricity will still take a little while. Thought about building a new Palace in Edrine but didn’t. Transported a few muskets to our Eastern Island. Have more cities back on military now and we will want more defenses everywhere. Usulkador has built lots of Cannon and once we get RP those will be highly useful Arti. Note that France has MPP with both Korea and the Aztecs. I still think we strike w/Siaphi and Arti because we go into AW mode with the modern Era anyway and are currently tactless.

Left turn 1050 AD mostly undone due to circumstances beyond my control, figured it was better to hand off here than keep for another 12 hours.

Good luck Skyfish!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr6-1050ad.zip

 

[T-hawk]

19-turn research? That's a bit in the "ouch" department. A new Palace in Edrine might actually be key to getting some of those English cities productive - I think I'd do it if it were a solo game.

Striking with Sipahi and arty - 100% definitely. Korea will go down under that pretty quickly, and we might even have time for one more target before tanks. Heck, if the game runs slow enough, we might not even get to the Always War phase. Maybe we could even win after stopping at Motorized Transportation and Flight and avoiding Radio completely...

 

[Gothmog]

Yeah I'd move the palace too, some of that English land is pretty good. Edrine finished all its infrastructure and is building a Muskets currently. We really needed a few. It could go to Palace directly. I wasn't sure if we'd want it for ToE but I think we could build that elsewhere. We have a ways to go for MT so maybe we could end it before the modern era.

I got home and played the rest of my last turn. Here's the new save.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr6-1050ad2.zip