MB4 - GOTM24 Redux [civ3] Roster A

[smackster]

I'll wait up for it, so will play tonight, it will be back to Bugsy in the AM

I think the only way to keep the rep was to not accept the peace renegotation. But we would have then been at war on their turn and they would have attacked us with their 47 troops. I think we had to take the deal and break it. I really don't understand why sometime the renegotiate and sometime they don't I'll try to experiment on this.

At this time, having already broken rep with Takeda, I don't think that peace, then war makes it much worse than it already is. So you might as well take peace now, take the tech, and go back to war same turn.

Certainly with rep broken our chance for sneak attack from the east is higher so keep the border protection up there.

Good news about Sun Tzu we should build forces to take that as soon as we think we have enough.

Smackster

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Alan,
Thanks for the support. Yes, that was a long set of turns. The first turn with the huge battle took quite a while. I tried to make sure I could attack as many enemy units and not leave someone just out of reach. The rest of the turns took so long, because I was so sick for having ruined our rep, I was trying really hard to execute the game as best as I could. Then double checking.

Bugs

 

[AlanH]

During my first quick look around I see we shall need Marines to finish this off! There's a one-tile island city occupied by Shimazu. I think that puts paid to my 1000AD/medieval target, unless we can teach cavalry to jump ship.

We don't get berserkers, do we?

 

[Sir Bugsy]

An option with one tile cities is to ask for them in a peace treaty. If you have someone on the ropes, they will usually give you little cities like that. You need to make sure that their capitol doesn't jump to the island.

 

[smackster]

Bombard it down to size one first, then they will give it up easily, we must not forget this when we go to fight them

 

[AlanH]

@Sir Bugsy and Smackster: Good thinking. That will be possible once we have naval bombard capability - Magnetism/Frigates. I've not tried for conquest before, so these tricks are new to me. I've noticed a couple mor one tile islands about. At least two of them are occupied now and no doubt there will be more before we finish, so grabbing them in peace deals has to be a high priority for an early finish.

I''ve started doing the preflight diplo rounds. My objectives are:

1. To get a small dogpile going on the other continent against Han as he is our main competitor. I haven't bought an embassy over there yet - they are a bit expensive - but it looks as if Gogury are already at war with them judging from the power curve, so I need to get Baekje and Korea into a fight.

2. Grab some cash to fund embassies plus upgrades for our gallant horsemen. I've renegotiated peace with Shimazu, plus the alliance we had with them against Mori, to extract their cash and a world map. We can't get up-front cash or tech out of Chosogabe, but he is at war with Gogury and we sell an alliance with him against Gogury for 20 gpt. Gogury are on the way out by the look of F8, and there's no way we are going to have physical contact between the two continents within the next 20 turns, so it will all be academic as far as we are concerned.

3. Carry on fighting. The next couple of turns will be healing and positioning. As there are a couple of big towns next - pop 7, pop 10 - I'll try to ensure we have a full-scale force ready before I hit them. I don't know whether I'll be able to get any knights into play during the next round of sieges - depends on how many peace deals I can sell for lump sums. If not I want to use Kensei Oda as much as possible. Although they are powerful now, they are "relatively" expendable as we can't upgrade them, whereas our horses ar going to stand us in good stead right through to cavalry.

4. We don't really need Invention for its own sake yet, unless someone thinks we need to build longbows. I'll only sacrifice cash or a false peace deal to get Invention as and when I need to use a leader for Leonardo's. I figure Leo's is priority #1 for a leader, given our need to turn horses into knights, with a new palace as priority #2.

Comments are welcome as long as they arrive soon ....

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I agree that Leo's would be huge for us. Cash flow will be very important, and the savings will be significant.

I suppose we will need to time a war with Kuroda. Bizen has Sun Tzu's and it is right on the frontier. We take Bizen then we can sell our barracks for some cash.

I would think the prepositioning of units to go to war on the eastern front could happen with about 3-4 Takeda cities left. Sue for peace when you can get techs and most or all of their remaining cities. Then go after Kuroda.

The Takeda war will have the widest front until we get to the Korean peninsula, so after this the turns probably won't take as long.

Bugs

 

[AlanH]

If I recall correctly during GOTM25 I only got 2 gold for each Barracks I sold, so I doubt that will do us much good - maybe fund one upgrade. The huge benefit from Sun Tzu is to be able to heal and upgrade units in any city on the continent.

Korean peninsula?

 

[smackster]

Alan,

Are you playing now, as we are both on-line, why not type your report for each turn directly into Quick Reply then we can see it turn by turn.

Do you have timbuktu (I'm joking I know you don't) but that would allow us to watch your moves live. Maybe we could start selling tickets for our moves.

 

[smackster]

Smackster Live at 2.00pm playing turn 25 3000BC SGXYZ

Click here to sign up
http://www.xyz.com

Entrance fee $1

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Originally posted by AlanH
Korean peninsula?

The way cracker set up the map, it looks like Japan and Korea are upside down. Japan is to the north, the sea of Japan to the south , and the land mass with Korea, Han, Baejke, and Gogury looks like the Korean Peninsula if you turn it upside down.

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by smackster
Alan,

Are you playing now, as we are both on-line, why not type your report for each turn directly into Quick Reply then we can see it turn by turn.

Just had my dinner, ready to start again now (It's 8:15 pm here in Tony Blair's own). I suppose I could pause and edit - not sure about posting 10 separate replies, sonds a bit excessive! I'll see how it goes. I may prefer to keep my private grief to myself until the end of my turns.

Do you have timbuktu

Nope! I do have VNC, but I doubt if it could relay a Civ3 display. It seems Civ3 takes out the entire Mac OS window manager rather than running in a well-behaved OS window.

Well, in the absence of any further comments or suggestions, I'm going in! Wish me luck.

PS. I don't doubt the way you see the geography. I just don't see us getting to the "Korean Peninsula" during the Takeda offensive.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Oh sorry Alan... miscommunication. I was just commenting that once we get through with Takeda, the fronts on the Japanese islands will be narrow and easy to fight.

 

[AlanH]

Preflight
Renegotiate peace with Shimazu plus alliance vs. Mori. 26 gold plus wmap.
That gives us 92 gold, so upgrade vet horseman to Samurai (80 gold - we do need Leo's!) ready for attack on Yokohama.
Sell alliance with Chosogabe vs. Gogury for 20 gpt. We declare war on Gogury.
Fire clowns, recruit taxmen. Tune cities up a bit. Income now 94 gpt.
Hit next turn

IBT
A couple of Takeda footmen move. Two Kuroda settler parties move along S coast.
Fiju barracks -> harbour, Sir Bugsy barracks -> Samurai, Cracker San temple -> barracks.
AI cascades from Sun Tzu to Leo's. Hope we get a leader soon as we don't really want Leo's to be completed on the other island.

Turn 1. 360 AD
5/5 Oda kills 3/3 footman near Saitima -> 3/5
Move troops towards the mext two targets - Yokohama and Choshi.

IBT
Some fighting between Mori and Kuroda.
Okazaki temple -> barracks
Segamahara flips to Takeda . Not sure how many troops were there - at least a couple of healing horses. Border re-expands and the nearest healthy resources are too far away. I'll adopt my normal approach of keeping healthy recapture forces right outside captured cities from now on.
Han builds an embassy in our capital.

Turn 2. 370 AD - The Battle for Yokohama
4/4 samurai kills 3/3 flagged samurai. Promotes to 5/5
5/5 horseman kills 3/3 footman -> 2/5
5/5 horseman kills 3/3 footman -> 2/5
5/5 horseman kills 3/3 archer. No damage. Captures Yokohama with 7 resisters, 2 taxmen and a courthouse.

Troops move into final positions for Chosi.

Now we have an embassy with Han we can confirm that they are at war with Gogury. We have enough cash to buy embassies with Baekje and Korea and see if we can get a war going with Han. BUT. Just noticed we have a 15 gpt payment to them. So a slight change of plan is called for:

Sell alliance with Han vs. Gogury for 8 gpt.
Declare war on Korea.
Buy an embassy in Baekje for 62 gold - Ch'ongju is pop 8 has all improvements, 4 spears, flagged samurai, settler, worker, 2 catapults. Iron and horses hooked up. No lux. They give an alliance vs. Korea for free. Can't get gpt or gold from them. They declare war on Korea.
Buy an alliance with Han vs. Korea for 14 gpt + 2 gold + wmap. They declare war on Korea.
Net result is we are paying Han 6 gpt and we have a war going on the other continent with Gogury and Korea fighting Han and Baekje.

Part 2

Can't upgrade horses at the front because we've temporarily lost road access to the capital.

IBT
Takeda Kensei attacks horse. Horse retreats and is killed by a flagged footman. They will both die!

Chiba and Owase riot - I think I removed some PM after checking F1. No problem, as they are restisting or totally corrupt anyway.

Turn 3. 380 AD. The Fall of Choshi
5/5 Oda dies against 4/4 samurai spear -> 2/4
5/5 Oda dies against 3/3 samurai spear -> 1/3
4/4 Oda kills 3/3 samurai spear without damage.
5/5 horse kills 2/4 samurai spear -> 4/5
5/5 horse kills 1/3 samurai spear -> 3/5 and captures the city. Pop is 5 resisters + 1 taxman, 2 workers start road to civilization.

5/5 Oda kills 3/3 flagged footman -> 4/5 to recapture Sagamihara and we have our first Grreat Leader. The Oda is renamed Moonsinger, and the Leader, Nobuo, relocates to Yaizu ready to create Leonardo's Workshop. Yaizu is near enough to reach in this turn and is ex Tokugawa, so not likely to flip.

There's a slight problem - we don't know Invention yet. No one will sell it to us. How sad! What a shame! Never mind, Takeda will give us Invention for a peace treaty. He won't give us a city, so we take his only gold piece and his world map, and 574 shields are magically produced in Yaizu by Nobuo.

We then callously kill the two dastardly cowards who took our brave horseman to restart the war, unfortunately losing another elite horseman in the process . Note that the redeclaration took place whie we still had troops on Takeda territory, so we are now marked men.

On the eastern front a 5/5 Oda kills a Mori 4/4 flagged footman.

Check diplo: Kurodo and Han both have Gunpowder.

[Part 3]
Notice that there's a track between the continents on the map, where Mori, presumably, used the Great Lighthouse to find the other world.

IBT
Kuroda and Mori sign peace.
Kuroda abnd Han ally vs. Korea.
Yaizu completes Leo's, starts barracks (20)
Karasu completes Settler, starts Samurai (12)

Turn 4. 390 AD. The Seige of Edo
5/5 samurai dies vs. 4/4 samurai spear.
OK, that puts a crimp in our Edo attack for this turn!

5/5 Oda kills 3/3 footman wandering in mountains.
Upgrade 2 horses. Problem is we've moved past the barracks cities, and the newly captured ones are still resisting so we can't rush barracks
Diplo - no deals available.

IBT
Kensei from Edo kills a horseman in our SOD.
Kensei from Setagaya-ku attacks horseman. Horse retreats.
Kensei from Kyoto attacks Oda and dies.
Handa samurai -> samurai

Turn 5. 400 AD. Seige of Edo builds
Setagaya-ku:
4/4 horse attacks 4/4 Kensei and dies
4/4 horse attacks 4/4 Kensei and retreats
4/4 horse attacks 3/3 Footman and retreats
Not a good day at the RNG.

4/4 horse kills 3/4 Kensei outside Edo.

IBT
2 Takeda samurai kill horses in our SOD at Edo
Nagoya completes Aqueduct -> market
Suzuka completes Samurai -> samurai

Turn 6. 410 AD. Seige continues
2 samurai attack Edo and kill a Samurai. Both reduced to 1/4
At Funabashi a rambo footman holds us off. Kills 4/4 Oda and 4/4 horse.
Move horsemen back to barracxks for upgrades. We need samurai!

[Final four turns in my next post]

 

[smackster]

Good luck on the leader Alan, should really help on the upgrades. With Sun Tzu so close we have laid a good foundation for victory. We still need to get the FP in a good place I think, so next leader should do that, will help us build more horses->Samuari (what speed are they)->Cavalry

 

[AlanH]

@ Smackster : Samurai are 4.4.2. They attack like Knights, but have 4 defence instead of 3.

I think I'll call it a night. I'm slowing up and in danger of making mistakes. We can't use horses any more without taking severe losses, and the route back to barracks for upgrade is painfully slow. Oda seem to struggle too, even though they have 4 attack, probably because of Edo's size. But even in the small towns I'm losing more often than I should to the RNG, so I need bigger stacks than I have been allowing

So I think I'll regroup in the morning, get the upgrade program moving properly and give it to Smackster tomorrow afternoon. We have over 100 gpt coming in currently, and upgrades are now 40 each instead of 80. It's a bummer, but I think we may have to upgrade elites as well.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

IBT
Kensei from Satagaya-ku ills an Oda.
Mori Kensei from Kyoto atacks Oda and dies
Azuchi samurai -> samurai
2 Kuroda samurai archers (4.1.1) are moving towards Ise
Another Kuroda settler party sets out across our territory.

Turn 7. 420 AD. The Fall of Edo
Horse kills Kensei outside Setagaya-ku

At Edo:
5/5 Oda dies vs 4/4 samurai spear -> 3/4
4/4 Oda -> 2/4 kills 3/4 samurai
5/5 Oda dies vs 3/3 samurai spear -> 4/4
5/5 Oda -> 1/5 kills 4/4 samurai spear
5/5 Oda -> 3/5 kills 3/3 samurai spear
4/4 Oda dies vs 3/4 samurai spear -> 2/5
5/5 Horseman dies vs 3/3 flagged footman/Rambo -> 3/4
5/5 Horseman retreats 3/4 flagged footman/Rambo -> 3/4
5/5 Horseman dies vs 3/4 flagged footman/Rambo -> 2/5
4/4 Horseman -> 3/5 kills 2/5 samurai spear
4/4 Horseman -> 3/5 kills 2/5 flagged footman/Rambo ... and captures Edo
Captured catapults bombard 3/3 samurai spear -> 2/3 outside Edo
4/4 horse -> 3/4 kills 2/3 samurai spear

Edo is pop 6, 3 resisters 3 taxmen, granery, aqueduct, 3 catapults.
Capital jumps to Tateyama
F4 shows Takeda now has no iron or horses. He does have Gunpowder.

3/3 junk -> 2/4 kills sinks barb galley

Upgrade footman to flagged samurai for 10 gold. There seems to be no advantage - still 1.2.1, just prettier.
Upgrade 4 horses to samurai
Herd Kuroda settlers with workers and Odi to allow our settler to reach space.

Diplo: We have three more turns of peace with Kuroda and Chosogabe.
Buy a world map swap with Han for 9 gold. He's building up on the other island.
Move troops to protect cities near Kuroda archers. Switch Moriyama-ku to temple for happiness as they lose MPs (losing 4 shields).

IBT
Mori junk approaches our damaged junk. He has the Lighthouse, so he can outrun us. Retreat anyway. A Chosogabe junk appears as well.
Kuroda archers move towards Moriyama-ku
Yokkachi samurai -> samurai
Moriyama-ku temple -> Oda (8)
Kuroda are building the Sistine Chapel

Turn 8. 430 AD
Funebashi: 2 samurai and a horse attack two Rambo footmen. One samurai dies. The second kills and promotes. The horse dies.

Ohara: 2 horses attack 2 footmen. One dies the other retreats.

Move new samurai to cover Kuroda archers. Decide to renew ROP - still active but expired. Can't get anything for it, but he'll hurt his rep if he attacks when peace expires in 2 turns.
No deals available on Gunpowder or Buddhism. Even Takeda will not give Gunpowder for peace ... yet!

IBT
Takeda samurai spear recaptures exposed worker near Ohara.
Shamizu and Kuroda ally vs Korea.
Mori junk hasn't pursued our damaged junk.
Ise market -> samurai
Owese worker -> worker
Korea starts Sistine Chapel

Turn 9. 440 AD. Fall of Two Cities
Catapults bombard Takeda samurai spear to 1/3 and 4/4 horse -> 3/4 kills him.

Funebashi:
4/5 samurai retreats vs 4/5 footman -> 2/5
4/4 samurai -> 2/5 kills 2/5 footman and captures the city Pop = 2 resisters

Setagaya-ku:
4/4 horseman -> 3/5 kills 4/4 footman
4/4 horseman dies vs 3/3 footman -> 2/4
5/5 horseman -> 4/5 kills 2/4 footman and captures city - 2 resisters, 1 taxaman. It has a BARRACKS!

Near Kyoto 4/4 Oda kills 3/3 Moi Oda.

Ohara:
4/4 horse dies vs 4/4 footman -> 1/4

Upgrade 2 horsemen to samurai (80)
Still not sure where Kuroda archers are heading. They are moving through.
Shadow them with Oda and samurai to cover our cities.

IBT
Kuroda moves on through. I think he may just be aiming to reinforce the new cities his settlers plan to build. I've been baulking them whiile our cettler gets to the next obvious position. We probably need to build a couple more, or just let Kuroda through to build them for us further south west.
Ogaki samurai -> samurai
Komaki samurai -> samurai
New Azuchi harbour -> barracks
Chosogabe starts Sistine Chapel

Turn 10. 450 AD. Onwards ...
Moved samurai, oda towards next targets.
Upgraded 2 horses at Setagaya-ku.

Setagaya-ku can be our new forward upgrade centre. Workers are improving road system over the mountains in blitz mode.
Stack outside Ohara should be able to take it next turn.
Samurai stack near Edo can reach advanced party on hill overlooking Tateyama next turn. Then they can attack the following turn.

There's a settler in the mountains with a couple of road workers. Suggest he can settle one tile south west to deny Kuroda settlers who were delayed by the worker wall and oda.

Watch the Kuroda archers. There are a couple of samurai shadowing them in nearby cities. These probably need to be moved to your taste before you hit space.

Yakeda will now give Gunwpoder for peace. Don't know if we want to continue our treacherous ways, but it's an option to get a view of where the saltpeter is.

We have about ten more horses to upgrade and enough money in the bank.

Firaxis Score is 1148

Here's the save
Over to you Smackster-san. May you live in interesting times.

Here's a picture of the sharp end ....

 

[AlanH]

A warning. Although we've deprived Takeda of his iron and horses he still has some samurai, including the one you can see holed up in Tateyama. As defenders samurai are worse than muskets. They have the same 4 defence as a musket, but our fast units will not retreat from them.

 

[smackster]

OK, I got the save, will play later today. Have to go and clear the snow off my car now (2 inches I think). Will certainly have it done before end of my day, probably early.

I will probably take that peace and then attack again. I'm convinced we have nothing to lose at this point.

 

[AlanH]

Just remembered, another warning in case you didn't read my turn details.

I discovered that the 10 gold upgrade from footman to flagged samurai buys you nothing. For all you defender fans, a flagged samurai is 1.2.1, same as a footman. So the 10 gold is just a down payment with no benefit. I guess it reduces the cost for the later upgrade to musket. but we might as well save the cash now and spend it later when we have Gunpowder and need the extra defence.

We don't seem to have a pikeman equivalent, just a knight who thinks he's a musket.

 

[AlanH]

I've volunteered to maintain the roster status here, as MB's a bit pushed for time. So here it is.

Roster:

Karasu (Returns 8th December)
Sir Bugsy
AlanH
Smackster UP
Teknoice ON DECK

Teknoice is still officially on the roster. I've chased him up by PM just in case he still wants a piece of the action. As he's become another invisible man since his sole appearance over a week ago, I propose we drop him from the roster if we don't hear from him between now and 24 hours after Smackster has posted.

Assuming Smackster plays tonight then a 24 hour wait for Teknoice will take us to about 05:00 am GMT on 8th December. As that's Karasu's scheduled return date I'll PM him after Smackster posts and see if he can be up to speed on that day. Karasu's reliable, so I'm sure we'll hear from him one way or another if at all possible, and then we'll know where we stand.

@Sir Bugsy: Are you available to pick up on the 8th-9th if Karasu can't get it?