Matrix1 - Ziggurat Addiction

[IdiotsOpposite]

vv

^^

Horseback Riding is essentially useless. I meant opportunities, as in stuff that would be useful for more than horse archers.

 

[MatrixTheKitty]

Not unless we gift/sell the AI the techs we have on them, because right now the only thing being researched that we don't have is Horseback Riding.

 

[Mikehendi]

Oh, you mean like

Maybe we could give some techs away to ai's we want to befriend (until we hehehe)?
This would both gain us diplo points, and makes it likely they'll go tech something for us to steal!

Nice turnset, good call on giving shaka feudalism.

When are we gonna take someone out , I feel like smashing some heads! And that comes from me, the builder. I'm probably the Ghandi of the team!

 

[MatrixTheKitty]

Well, Freddy has been crippled by the destruction of Calcutta and our taking of Agra. We should probably go for him.

 

[happyturtle]

Oops... been a bit distracted (*cough CiV cough*) and missed that I was up. Got it now.

MtK - just went
HT - up
MH - on deck
B
IO
Admiral
kol (hiatus)

 

[happyturtle]

PPP: Wake up the workers and build some farms in Marbelous and Agra
Rename Agra to "We Told You That Cow Was Ours, Didn't We?" (or some short enough variation to fit )
Build a Hindu Missionary for Cow to give it culture.
Build a Market in Drunk Lagash, to focus it on commerce, and a Barracks in Marbelous to give us a second unit city.
Get some harbors going in our coastal cities.
There's no whip anger anywhere, so I think I'll whip a bit. Not in every city though. We need Civil Service, dammit!
Trade resources.
Move our spy to Bibracte (cheaper steal, because it's Hindu), wait 5 turns, and steal Theocracy from Boudica.
Build up military, esp longbows.
Gift techs to anyone who asks to encourage them to tech something we can steal.
Maybe sell some techs for bargain prices to allow for more thievery?

 

[happyturtle]

BTW, will play tomorrow afternoon by the above plan if no one speaks up.

 

[MatrixTheKitty]

Plan sounds fine to me.

 

[happyturtle]

I played 12 turns. Stole Theocracy and CoL. Built stuff. Improved tiles. Absolutely nothing else of interest has happened.

Literature is available in 4 turns and Civil Service in 7. Shall I keep playing till then, then do a massive anarchy revolt to HR, Bureaucracy, Caste, and Theocracy (3 turns of anarchy! ) Or maybe better, keep playing till then then stop and let us discuss which civics to change.

 

[MatrixTheKitty]

Caste is useless to us. It doesn't allow infinite spy specs. We don't want infinite scientists. We're not going culture, so artists are useless. Merchants are the only specialist that Caste System offers that are useful to us, but even then, we probably don't want to use them for fear of popping great merchants instead of great spies. Unless we plan on using lots of workshops, we should just stick to Slavery until Emancipation for cottage growing goodness and not having emancipation anger.

Aren't we already in HR? If not, we probably don't need it, unless we want diplo bonuses with someone who likes it. The forced spy specs at 6pop really put a crimp in growth, lessening the need for extra happiness. Though, it's low upkeep like Despotism, and unlike that, it gives a bonus, so I guess it can't hurt, really.

Bureaucracy is good as always, though we will eventually want to switch to Nationhood for the EP bonus, and rifle drafting.

Theocracy is of course a good choice for a Conquest game.

 

[happyturtle]

Turnset attached.


I'm thinking no:

Spoiler :

Theocracy:

Spoiler :

Code of Laws:

Spoiler :

This got Boudica researching more useful stuff:

Spoiler :

Hopefully this will do the same for Freddy:

Spoiler :

The cost is the same, but note the odds of success here:

Spoiler :

vs here:

Spoiler :

Because it's the capitol maybe? I used the more successful city, but the spy got caught.

Spoiler :

But passed off the information before being tortured to death.

I didn't steal Lit, because the spy just arrived in Bibracte. Drama is available too, but the spy hasn't been in place for 5 turns yet. We need to keep one city doing nothing but pumping out spies to send out to various places, and make sure we always have some in route to Boudica if we're going to keep stealing from her. It takes forever for them to arrive!

Workers have started on irrigation chains, and our stagnant cities can start growing now. Hurray! I've got forges up in our production cities, so I see no reason not to switch civics to Theocracy, and Bureaucracy should send out Espionage points through the roof. Selling old techs is keeping us in money so we can run 100% espionage. I built walls in Uruk so we can build a castle for more after we steal Engineering. And otherwise have been building longbows and cats. Also a Hindu Monastery in Gift from God to both culture battle that border, plus give us a non-military city to make missionaries after we leave OR.

Hope nobody minds that I kept going, but it was so dull I didn't see the point in passing it off to someone else to do more dull stuff for another 10 turns. Now that we have Civil Service, we can start growing and make ready to wipe out either India or Ethiopia. It's starting to get interesting!

 

[happyturtle]

MtK
HT - just went
MH - up
B - on deck
IO
Admiral
kol (hiatus)

 

[Mikehendi]

got it, I'll try to post a ppp in a few hours time. Well done HT , also a nice report to read!

 

[Mikehendi]

Well, couldn't reach the forums yesterday evening (again...)

PPP

Steal machinery from Qin in 1 turn.
Build maces and cats



what?

No that's all!

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Sorry for not keeping up guys, been busy with my master's. I'm dropping in to say that I had to uninstall civ4 in order to get civ5 up - SSD's are fast but man do they fill up quickly. So I regret saying that I must leave this boat. Good luck, this game is looking good and with those maces, it should look up real fast, real soon. A shame I can't share in the bashing Have fun!

 

[MatrixTheKitty]

Aw, alright, then.

Matrix
Happyturtle - just went
Mikehendi - up
IdiotsOpposite - on deck
Admiral Kutzov - AUFN

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Aw, alright, then.

Matrix
Happyturtle - just went
Mikehendi - up
IdiotsOpposite - on deck
Admiral Kutzov - AUFN

Wait, I'm on deck now!

 

[Mikehendi]

I've played quite an interesting turnset!

The report

Spoiler :

will be up in a few hours

And so...

Spoiler :

Here it is!

T252 (inherited turn): Wow, I just notice it's 1070 AD, and no AI has paper, philosophy, music, I'm really amazed! I guess that with no human player teching on it's own, the AI really gets slowed down. Normally, the AI's would be close to liberalism around this time!

But hey, let's get on with it!

First, I switch civics, Bureaucracy and theocracy, and after some thought, also HR. Even though we have a massive happy surplus in most cities (and 4 surplus in the least happy cities), I plan on whipping a lot and war weariness will also become an issue soon. So 3 turns of anarchy it is!

The fun thing about the EE is, that even when your empire is in anarchy, you can keep obtaining techs:

We almost had this self-researched, but still pay full cost for stealing it. I stole it anyway, partly because I feel it's not in the spirit of the game to self-research a tech, and partly because I didn't even notice we were researching it ourselves!

I could steal machinery @ -40%, but I decide to wait an extra turn. Of course, the spy gets caught in the interturn. So, a turn later the anarchy is over, and I do this:

A slightly higher price, but we can start building maces!

I also steal this at a higher price:

To start building the Heroic Epic in Pink Dot Kish (9 turn build, I have no screenie of it's completion)

I've also built 14 maces, 8 cata's and a few LB/WE's, cracking the whip like mad. Especially Metal Boats and GiftfromGods will remember it for a long time to come (4 times stacked whip anger! But hey, with 12 happy surplus, no problem!)

A part of the army has already died, and here's why:

This is the first turn after I started building maces... but I agree, which nets us:

A friendly shaka! That's gotta be worth the cost of upgrading a few vultures to maces!

I decide to ask something back

But he doesn't give it.

Target for this over hasted war:

A shrined city! Oh yeah! This also means extra EP discount when stealing from cities which have buddism present!

Shaka decides to give us his gold after all:

T258: Fred actually manages to reconquer Calcutta from shaka

T259: Our hastily put together stack:

T260:

I tell her no. But if you manage to not look at the boobs, you can see she was only 3 turns from researching it herself.... so it wasn't a big thing to give her... oops! Or should I say Boops!

leads to

and

leads to

Hey, the screenshot's missing! Well, see above for similar effect! I actually captured this city just to remove some of the indian culture near delhi. Unfortunately I had some bad RNG rolls (uhm, read: a Guerilla II longbow on a hill city with walls), and capturing took 2 turns, and the death of nearly all units. Also, I LOST delhi to a stack of horse archers on turn 266!

The 3 maces just outside of delhi (who were actually on the way to reinforce delhi) managed to just barely re-retake delhi from fred. With my whole first stack decimated, I saw myself forced to sign a peace treaty on turn 267...

I suggest

but the final deal is

next to nothing. But the shrine is ours! Now we have some time to regroup and garrison our new cities before attacking again! I already have built a second stack, which is just outside Fred's southern border.

T268:

I steal optics:

Now compare that cost to the tech cost! :

Wow! Just wow! 3 times CHEAPER in EP then in beakers! Amazing!

Suddenly, it was already turn 271, which means I played 19 turns... well, 3 of them were anarchy, but still. But to end with this was rather satisfying:

Not one spy got caught stealing the whole set!

And the save:

 

[MatrixTheKitty]

Nice turnset, Mike!

Matrix - on deck
Happyturtle
Mikehendi - just went
IdiotsOpposite - up
Admiral Kutzov - AUFN

 

[happyturtle]

*applause*

Great job, even if you did have to suicide all our troops and whip away all our citizens to make it happen.