MB4 - GOTM24 Redux [civ3] Roster B

[AdrianE]

Ok here's my report:

Pre-turn

We are down 4 techs to a lot of civs. I purchase a worker. I micromanage our corrupt hellholes and hire taxmen. Most 6 pop cities can support 2 taxmen if we do it right. Many of our workers are improving corrupt lands. No point in that. Our workers are also mining the valleys. We need those irrigated.

740AD - lose a wounded samurai in Funabashi

750AD - trade dyes to Mori for 9GPT (try to keep him happy until the Blue Horde comes) - score 1781

IBT -Funabashi lost
Mori declares war on the Han

760AD - Army wins battle, leader builds Heroic epic, buy worker from Chogosabe
Start redeployment, concentration of forces.

770AD - Smash all but 2 Takedan cities, get another leader build Sistines
sign peace with Takeda for Typography and Hitachi
Sell horses, wines and dyes to Shimazu for 45GPT (we need the cash and it will slow their research). I could also sell them saltpeter but no point giving them Cavalry.
No one will sell Astronomy to us but I'm saving cash

780AD- disband the city mad-bax wanted to get rid of near FP
IBT - Baejke and Takeda sign peace
Mori wants to renew ROP - I say no - he has a lot of settlers in our lands and I want to slow them down.
Shimazu builds Copernicus

790AD - finally have enough to buy Astronomy
We are strong so I use the reneogiate peace trade tactic
I renegoitate peace with Shimazu- We get Astronomy for 898 gold
I renegiotiate peace with Korea - We get MT for Ast, 85G and WM

IBT - Korea eliminates Baejke
Silk deal with Chogosabe ends - I don't renew it as they are next

800AD - finally destroy Kuroda - their stupid island town was a pain
Build wall of Samurai to stop flow of units from Mori

810AD - not much of note - I start herding Mori's settlers in the west.

820AD - upgrade some Samurai to Cav
IBT - Han completes Newtons

840AD - Chogosabe has 4 settlers and a half dozen units in our turf
I demand they leave or declare war. They choose war. We lose 1 cav to wipe out their offending forces. We get 8 free workers!

850AD - send cav units to barracks to recuperate.
We don't have enough cash to buy physics. We should be able to buy physics (from Han - give them the $ to buy an ally against Mori) next turn. Then swap Physics for banking from Korea. Navigation's asking price is 600$. We are making over 300GPT so its only two turns away.

Score 2072

We have ACTIVE deals with Mori and Shimazu and Korea. We have 12 turns of peace with Takeda. We are at war with Chogosabe. We have 9 cavalry near their cities on the mainland. We have 5 kublai junks (can carry 3 units each) to ferry the invasion force over. Basically we should be able to wipe out their mainland holdings and get a beachhead fairly easily.

>>save<<.

 

[mad-bax]

Nicely done Adrian.

Gormdragan you are up.

I have PM'd gormdragan as he hasn't posted here in a while. So, Peanut, get ready as you may well be up this time tomorrow.

Edit: spelling.

 

[gormdragan]

 

[mad-bax]

Hmmm... Looks like the library builds I ordered were a wate of time and shields as Adrain has caught us up in tech pretty much without research, and we only need steam and maybe industrialisation to finish the game. I would say that the only infrastructure we need are markets and maybe 8 banks. Some productive cities may support an aquaduct but otherwise it's just cavalry and boats IMO.

I'm a bit worried about coal. I hope we have some.

 

[AdrianE]

Given our land mass, I'm sure we have coal somewhere.

The libraries are not a waste IMO. They'll help with flip reduction as they generate culture. We will also need some research. I'm sure we'll need artillery.

Our biggest problem is that some of our core cities are woefully under developed. Our non-corrupt cities are working unimproved tiles. For example Azuchi was working an unimproved hill, unimproved goat hill and unimproved goat mountain. That's a loss of 6S,3$ per turn. The towns NE of Azuchi are even worse off. And the ones SE are worse still. I'll bet we are losing 50 shields a turn that we could have.

I started moving workers back towards the core to develop the core cities. There are some worker gangs near Azuchi fixing the problems above. I also ordered some aquaducts in core cities. We need a dozen size 12 productive cities to build cavalry. I also started reassigning tiles for max growth and productivity.

On the trading front: note Korea is behind and scientific. Watch out for the opportunity to gift Korea techs to elevate them to Industrial age, buy the instant free tech from them and then sell it. Korea's days are numbered though. Mori brought them into the war with the Han for 2 techs.

If unhappiness becomes a problem we can build cathedrals in our big cities. We are a monarchy now. If we flip to republic we will need cathedrals to help with WW.

As soon as we have Navigation, explore the empty ocean with our southern Kublai junks. The AI's will pay lots of gold for maps of empty ocean.

 

[mad-bax]

I think that when we started to expand militarily we didn't have pyramids, and we used workers to road to the front line. Because the core didn't have granaries the lack of development was not too apparent. Now the cities have grown, (and yes I noticed on my turns too) the lack of development is hurting, but getting the workers back to the core can be a 10 turn exercise and it is off-putting.

In general I think we should try to double our worker numbers before we get steam. Maybe we can form gangs to improve particular cities, irrigating grass and plains, and mining hills and bonus mountains in a balanced way on a per city basis.

If we start a new war against a new opponent I thought war weariness accumulated from zero again. So if I'm right we would have very low war weariness if we switch back to republic. Could anyone confirm whether this is correct or not? Of course if we have LOTS of units then it may not make a great difference.

If we stay in monarchy we could use up the nearly obsolete Kensai Oda against the Mori. If we switch to Republic we could selectively disband them gradually to help replace unupgradeable border defences to muskets. As we get more banks and markets I think we should try to get back to Republic if possible.

 

[AdrianE]

mad-bax

I used up the Kensai Oda relieving Samurai from garrison duty. With all those Mori units marching through our lands we needed garrisons. There is a corrupt but unconnected town I set to producing spearmen. Its south of the FP. They can be rushed every 2nd turn for 76gold. Use these spearmen to garrison towns and free up the Kensai Oda. Most of the Kensai Oda are in the west IIRC. They will never march to the Mori lands until after rails.

Since Chogosabe declared war on us we are experiencing war happiness.

 

[Peanut]

A new article in the Academy deals with just this subject.

As usual, it is not simple. The article suggests that WW takes a while to dissipate. What happens on a change of government is not clear - just try it and see I guess ...

 

[gormdragan]

I got it....will play tomorrow.

 

[gormdragan]

I am sorry that there is no progress as of yet. The other SG took a really long time. Will definitely post tomorrow, this SG is on the top of my list.

 

[mad-bax]

It's fine gormdragan. No pressure here.

 

[gormdragan]

Preturn:

(1) We have a serious tech problem. I will be boosting our research expenses to catch up. Hopefully, we can get MT to trade for the rest.

(2) There is no strategical reason to remain in war, our military force is not capable to do much. I would push Chosogabe out of our continent and quickly sue for peace. Any chance of winning this game b4 the industrial ages died when the Hans became a superpower.

(3) If opportunity arrises, I will take Mori, otherwise I think it is time we gear up for the industrial ages.

(4) Why do we have so many Kensai???? I hope we didn't upgrade Kensai for garrison duties.

Start a TOE prebuild at Azuchi, Hoover prebuild at Koromo.

Revolt to Republic.

IBT:
Chosogabe and Han MA against Mori, lucky not us.

Chosogabe lands 3 cavs in our West coast!!!

860:
Research up to 90%, MT due in 3.

We slaughtered the Chosogabe landing.

Tosashimizu is ours.

All our sams are performing blocking actions!!!! What a waste of resources!!! Our Army is also performing blocking actions????

Also, there are so many unworked squares, DO NOT MINE MOUNTAINS!!!!!!!

I am glad we did not try a 2 front war. It would have destroyed us.

I am going to keep New Kasugai unconnected to mass produce garrison wars for us.

IBT:
Chosogabe and Han signed MA against Korea, again lucky not us.

870:
We need more workers.
We don't need to build anymore junks, we don't even have enough troops to fill the ones we have.

Crap!!! Hans have reached Industrial Ages, Barbarian uprising!!!

IBT:
our fur+ivory deal expired, can only get ivory back.

880:
Uwajima is ours.
Aki is ours. We kicked Chosogabe out of our continent. Let's see if we should carry on the push, Aki is the staging ground for the landing.

IBT:
Barbarian assault cost us 3 sams (all elites) and 1 kensai. We killed 17 horseman though.

890:
MT is discovered.
Trade MT+WM+10g to Mori for Physics
Our reputation is toasted, we can't trade any per turn deals.
Trade Physics+MT to Korea for Banking+WM.
Start Economics, due in 5 (need to do another 3-fer).

Start alots of Banks.

900:
New Hikone founded.
New Tateyama founded.
New Yoshi founded.

910:
Crap!! Hans and Shimizus discovered Economics. no 3-fer anymore. I am switching to TOG, economics is useless if you know you wouldn't get smiths. TOG in 5.

Our overseas assault begins, 6cav+3sam.

IBT:
We lost 2cav+3sam. OMG!!! I suspect we will not be able to take even 1 city.

920:
We landed another 5cav+4sam.

IBT:
Chosogabe wants peace, I said no.
OMG!!! we lost 3sam+1cav. We have only 5 cav and 1 sam left.

930:
I give it a shot. lost 3cav. There is no way will can take even 1 city, I sue for peace. Sorry pple, I disappointed everyone.

Agreed to peace for 43g with Chosogabe.

940:
Unhappiness strikes, I up lux to 10%, can't get any lux deal.

950:
Chosogabe makes Mag Voy.

Summary
(1) I think the time for war is over. We should start catching up in tech and also build up our cities to gear up for IA and tanks.

(2) I am mass producing workers, steam is around the corner, but we should do a medicine gambit to hope for a 2-fer.

(3) Azuchi and Hamamatsu are prebuilding for TOE and Hoover. If possible, hang on to that. Hydro plant in each of our cities is an incredible advantage.

Next better player.


The Save

 

[mad-bax]

Peanut: You are UP.

gormdragan: good turns. Don't get too disheartened. We were late to MT that's all. We really do need to build cannon and cav and a few muskets to starnd the canon on. Since we can't go against the Chosogabe for a while we will have to look at the Mori once our deals are up.

 

[mad-bax]

I've had a quick look at the save.

There is unclaimed territory to our southwest thet the Mori are sending settlers to. I would rush settlers and beat them to it. Don't let then expand.

There is unclaimed territory on the Han continent. We should establish a coastal city there and put a harbour in it.

Researching TOG was a mistake in my view. Magnetism would allow trade accross ocean squares and would allow us to get to the Han continent. I believe it would be better of cutting off research competeley and just buying magnetism as soon as we can afford it. Then we can switch research on and get steam quickly. At this point it is all over for the AI.

I think we should only build 8 banks and Wall street at this stage.
This is a conquest game. There is no soft option. Mainly we should build units. Productive cities produce Cav, unproductive cities produce canon. We have to use canon and Cavalry together against rifles. When we face the Han we may need RP for arty and Infantry.

What I don't want is for us to revert to builder mode just because the Mori and Chosogabe are not a walkover. This is exaclty the time where good players excel, because they continue to expand at the time the AI get rifles and cav. Mainly they do it by using SOD's that contain bombardment units.

Come on guys lets build an army and take out the Mori as soon as the lux deal expires. Let's them into the ground.

Edit: The slider can be dropped for TOG next turn. There are a couple of good cities building Kensai Oda. These should be changed to Cav. There are a few bad Cities building Kensai Oda which should be changed to worker. There are 11 banks in construction. The 3 in cities with the lowes uncorrupted commerce should be changed to cav. I also believe that all cities making 3-8spt but have a market should build canon. We have a number of cats in the southwest. They need shipping up to the northeast and then upgrading.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Peanut]

Got it ... after threatening the PC with a screwdriver if it did not recognise its modem again very quickly. After a few Control Panel tweaks and some mystic and ancient incantations (like "what the ****" and "I'm warning you, you *** *****") I'm online again.

Its been lovely weather here - very conducive to thinking about this SG. It was 34 degrees (C that is) & 60% humidity yesterday and even more sticky today until the thunderstorms around lunch time. And I was outside in the blazing sun rebuilding the front stairs.

Ah well. I will read the wise advice from Gormdragan and MadBax and see whether I can nurse our jolly gang along for another 10 turne without too much damage. Stay tuned folks but don't hold your breath ...

 

[AdrianE]

Originally posted by gormdragan
Preturn:

(1) We have a serious tech problem. I will be boosting our research expenses to catch up. Hopefully, we can get MT to trade for the rest.

(4) Why do we have so many Kensai???? I hope we didn't upgrade Kensai for garrison duties.

All our sams are performing blocking actions!!!! What a waste of resources!!! Our Army is also performing blocking actions????

Also, there are so many unworked squares, DO NOT MINE MOUNTAINS!!!!!!!

We need more workers.

MT is discovered.
Trade MT+WM+10g to Mori for Physics
Our reputation is toasted, we can't trade any per turn deals.
Trade Physics+MT to Korea for Banking+WM.
Start Economics, due in 5 (need to do another 3-fer).

Agreed to peace for 43g with Chosogabe.

I am going to disagree with your comments gormdragan.

re your point 1 : It is MUCH cheaper to buy the techs than to actually research them. We earn enough to buy a tech every 4 turns. We can usually get 2 for one.

re your point 4: I did not upgrade any Kensai. Note that Kensai are our cheapest garrison unit at 30S, now that we have muskets at 60S.

re the army and samurai blocking: The army is obsolete. It will never get anywhere in time to be useful. It is a 15 to 20 turn march across our empire. The samurai were all elite. I didn't want to upgrade the elites. These guys are also the ones scheduled to exterminate the Takedan remnants two or three turns after your turns end. Therefore I used them for a useful purpose while they waited. With the hordes of Han cavalry racing around in the west we needed units there anyway.

re mining mountains: of course we want to mine mountains to maximize production. We especially want to mine them if they are being used anyway. Anything over 24 food is a waste for a size 12 city. We are at war. We need the shields, especially in our core. We had workers improving hopelessly corrupt outposts. Mining core mountains is a much better use for them.

re workers: With all the ai/ai wars you can usually buy a couple workers every 10 turns. Its good to build them in our corrupt towns. However most of the corrupt towns were finishing their temples during my turns.

re trading: MT? Military tradition? Mori already had it so how could you trade it? or was it Magnetism? We lost our rep several players ago. We'll just have to live with it now. It just means we have to be more disciplined.

re peace with Chogosabe: good decision. If we can't crack their defences, we'll try again later.

 

[Peanut]

Yet to attack it folks - priority interrupts from the real world (Christmas coming, school holidays, etc. etc.). If I can't get to it tonight then I may have to pass this round.

Some ramblings from Peanut's Strategy Desk :

Military : Looking at the game pre-turn I am concerned at our offensive capability - only around 10 Cavalry. There are a few more Kensai though but Cavs are much more fun. Giving Choso peace (for the moment) was a wise choice.

My feeling is to agree with Mad-bax that we need to press on with our conquests. Choso & Shimadzu have luxuries that we will need to keep folk happy (as well as boosting the score) and we cannot afford to buy these luxuries as we are just too big ! So we need to visit them in force sooner rather than later.

Han is no real threat just yet but having Mori next door ready to be brought into a war by Choso / Shimadzu / Han should they bribe him is a nuisance we don't need. Much better to have a war with an overseas rival with incompetent AI admirals than one over the side fence just a short walk away. So Mori is next on the list I think.

Economy & Techs : I think we should build a few banks in high yield core cities for the cash, but then primarily crank out more cavalry. I agree with Adrian - we should buy / trade techs and only research essentials if we cannot buy them. However we have to get into the IA asap so we can see how far behind we really are, so break-even research is on for a while.

Prebuilding for Hoover / ToE is a good idea just in case we don't get leaders at the right time - good thinking Gormdragan. However the Academy may complete before we get the right techs so it may need switching to (say) a University and restarting closer to buying / researching the techs.

Workers : We need more workers busy near our core productive cities ready for strategic railing. They HAVE to do whatever they can to boost all non-corrupt production in the core cities and just ignore corrupt shanty towns (apart from strategic road building). That means mined hills & mountains with just enough irrigated grass to feed the miners. While population is crucial in the early game, production is King now !

Town Planning : Our half corrupt cities are only good for cannon and workers and the outer ones for workers only, with a rushed temple if we need the cultural boundary to discourage AI settlers. It also keeps their population down so they don't revolt.

Debate : A healthy debate is always a good thing as we can refine each other's ideas. Thanks for your views and ideas everyone. This is my first SG and I have learned a lot from seeing other's playing styles and discussing game strategy. So let's be sure we limit the discussion to creating a future that brings a quick and bloody end for our rivals, instead of holding inquiries into the past.

 

[mad-bax]

I like the debate too, especially when someone disagrees with me. A different view is great for learning. Also, playing SG's forces you to adopt different styles of play.

Having said that, I agree with everything you said. We can't really take on the Mori until we have around 15 - 20 cav and a similar number of canon.

 

[gormdragan]

I had about 15 cav+10sams+4cannons to start the offensive. Out of which all sam are used for blocking action. I have to disagree with you on the blocking action. Samurais are not obselete!!!! They provide the best and fastest defensive units for our attacking cavalries, being equal to musket in defence. using them as blocker are bad ideas. Plus we have a sam army, which is probably the best defender in the game at the point of my turns.

With regards to mining the mountains, why not mine the hills.
Considering we have so many unworked squares for our core cities, we can work at least 4 grasslands or mine 2 hills for every mountain we mine. We do not exactly have a supplus of workers so I am still not convinced that mining mountains is at all a good idea.

Before I sue for peace with Chosogabe, I had a 10 cav, 5sam, 4 cannon SOD slaughtered. I had only 1-2 sams+4-5cavs left, having attacking by more than 5 cavs per turn. I was totally convinced that we cannot take Chosogabe. We are not even producing a cav a turn, therefore I did not think we could sustain such losses, especially in view of the Mori troops running around our territories. Considering Chosogabe was signing MAs (twice in my turns), I was really concerned with a Han-Chosogabe alliance against us. We are in no condition to even defend our territory.

With regards to Mori, We need a lot more than 15 cavs to take them on. FYI, there are at least 5-10 sams in the south, + 4-6 cavs. Those troops were pushing the Hans off our continent and are now nursing in the captured cities. That is not counting any troops in the Mori core. Personally, I would not go to war again until tanks because I am not convinced our cores are producing sufficiently. Furthermore, with nationalism around the corner, rifleman+conscription would be an offensive issue. If we do intend to push for an assault, we need a huge number of cannons (I would be confortable with at least 20-30 cannons). In addition, I suggest waiting for railroads to stablise our own defence. We have practically nothing left to defend. If AI lands in a far off spot, we do not have sufficient units scattered thoughout our lands to repulse the landing.

With regards to research, I saw what I thought was an opportunity to catch up in tech, doing a 4-fer (ended up as a 3-fer) with Musical Theory(MT, not Military Tradition), then another 3-fer with Economics (ended up AI got it b4 us) and finally a 3-fer with TOG (as opposed to Magnestism suggested by mad-bax as AI tends to research Magnestism instead of TOG). I still firmly believe that my gamble was a good one that failed in the end. In other words, I would have taken the gamble again if I were to re-do those turns. Based on your idea of buying a tech every 4 turns, my 3-fer more than covers the 10 turns I played out (12 by your analyses). You can never catch up tech by buying them, we are not exactly making alot of $$$. By buying techs, you are paying for AI's reaseach (I think everyone is aware of that). Utilizing 2-fer, 3-fer, etc, is the key to keeping the tech race. I am actually disappointed we allowed ourselves to slide so far from the tech front.

My 2 cents.

 

[gormdragan]

Oh, I suggest switch Military Academy to Newton's College, if we press on TOG, we need both TOG and Magnetism to get to IA.

Rather than to build Kensai, which are really expensive defenders, what I typically do in my own games, is to maintain unconnected cities (about 4-5 of them) and use them to produce cheap warriors or spears. Once they are produced, march them to roaded cities and upgrade only when threatened. That is what I am doing for New Kasugai. If it were up to me, I would pillage the roads to a couple of corrupt cities to build warriors. Noting that some players don't fancy pillaging our own roads (considering that as exploitive), I did not do so.