mm17: Napoleon Dynamite AWE-1CC

[GreyFox]

Turn 220 (1550 AD)

Things are looking good. I switch a scientist to priest to have the grenie produced in 1 turn. I also send the idling worker to pre-chop a forest SW of Paris.

Paris equips a Grenadier


Turn 221 (1555 AD)

Next I start a Frigate. This reduces our reliance on cats since frigate can bombard city defenses with much less risk than cats. A greek caravel came wandering to the north of Paris, it was promptly sank:

Paris starts a Frigate
While attacking, Frigate defeats (6.96/8) Greek Caravel
Paris equips a Frigate


Turn 222 (1560 AD)

Nothing much, troops movement. I built one more musketeer. They ar ethe only 2 movement land units we are going to have for a long time, so they make excellent pillagers.

Paris starts a Musketeer
Paris equips a Musketeer


Turn 223 (1565 AD)

We have troops, need a galleon. I know we have some galleys waiting to be upgraded, but frankly, I think its easier to build galleons since we don't have that much money, and we need to save them for grenie upgrades.

Paris starts a Galleon
Frigate promoted to Combat I
Learn Guilds
Paris equips a Galleon

IBT:

A greek caravel attacks our caravel pair, and won :arrgh:

While defending, Caravel loses to Greek Caravel (0.60/3)

Our troops approaches Sparta, starts bombardment.


Turn 224 (1570 AD)

Next turn, our other caravel avenges his mate ...

While attacking, Frigate defeats (7.04/8) Mongolian Caravel

but I guess the lost of his mates is too much top bear, and he died wel, at the hand of Roman Cararvel:

While defending, Caravel defeats (0.15/3) Greek Caravel
While defending, Caravel loses to Roman Caravel (3.00/3)

We learnt Guilds, I decided to tune up our economy a bit befor egoing for steel. So, I started Banking, heading towards Economy for the free merchant. With guilds, I started a groccer as well.

Start research on Banking
Paris begins building a Grocer

Our frigate escorting a galleon saw a caravel

While attacking, Frigate defeats (7.04/8) Mongolian Caravel


Turn 225 (1575 AD)

The attack on Sparta begins!

While attacking, Grenadier defeats (6.96/12) Indian Longbowman
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (7.68/12) Indian Crossbowman
Razed Sparta

QED.


Turn 226 (1580 AD)

A pair of mongolian caravels approaches the NE of Paris. The firgate guarding the crabs attacks ...

While attacking, Frigate defeats (7.04/8) Mongolian Caravel

One down.

At Thermopylae, a Knight goes towards the rumbles of Sparta ...

While attacking, Pikeman defeats (4.08/6) Greek Knight

Learn Banking
Paris finishes Grocer


Turn 227 (1585 AD)

Banking learnt. Just nice, we fnished the groccer as well. So, start a bank.

Start research on Economics
Paris begins building a Bank

Our coast guard frigate hunts down the other mongolian caravel:

While attacking, Frigate defeats (2.24/8) Mongolian Caravel

woo ... close call. Meanwhile, Thermopylae's defense has been tear down to close to zero by our frigates ... I unloaded our troops to prepare for an invasion. Alex decided to try his luck with our troops:


While defending, War Elephant defeats (5.28/8) Greek Knight
While defending, War Elephant defeats (5.28/8) Greek Knight
While defending, Grenadier defeats (7.92/12) Greek War Elephant
While defending, Grenadier loses to Greek War Elephant (2.48/8)

Damned. And then, its my turn!


Turn 228 (1590 AD)

Catapult promoted to Barrage I
Catapult promoted to Barrage II
While attacking, Catapult loses to Greek Longbowman (5.22/6)
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (9.00/12) Greek Longbowman
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (6.24/12) Greek Longbowman
While attacking, Musketeer defeats (7.56/9) Greek Crossbowman
While attacking, Maceman defeats (8.00/8) Greek Pikeman
While attacking, Musketeer defeats (7.65/9) Greek War Elephant
While attacking, Musketeer defeats (7.83/9) Greek Catapult
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (7.92/12) Greek Catapult
Razed Thermopylae
Frigate promoted to Combat I

See the catapult there after Thermopylae is razed? It attacks ...

While defending, Grenadier defeats (6.36/12) Greek Catapult

and lost, despite its heroic (but feeble) attempt


Turn 229 (1595 AD)

Caught a wandering roman Galleon attempteing to settle where Sparta/Thermopylae originally were:

While attacking, Frigate defeats (8.00/8) Roman Galleon

Grenadier promoted to Combat II
Grenadier promoted to Formation
Paris finishes Bank

An Indian maceman came out of no where and attacks our mace:

While defending, Maceman defeats (1.60/8) Indian Maceman

Too bad, try harder next time.


Turn 230 (1600 AD)

Paris starts a Grenadier
Frigate promoted to Combat II

Meanwhile I have teared down pharsalos defnse:

Suggest next player to wait til next turn before unloading the troops. After razing it, the Greek should be impeded a bit. Suggest to move on to Mongolian next.

I have sent a galleon full of macman back for upgrading. Remember that to upgrade land units, the units must be in a landmass within our border and connected to our city, so always land troops on the main island for upgrading (and not the northen isle where the wines are).

Economics (and the great merchant) should come in next couple of turns, suggest heading for steel next.

I have the worker pre-chopped a few forests. Suggest saving these forest for the building of Ironworks and Drydock.

Here is the save (1600AD). Have fun. Pindicator is UP.

--

 

[pindicator]

Go Grey Fox! Go Grenies! Goodbye Greece!

Got it. Will take a look at it tonight and probably play Sunday evening.

 

[Xtream_Rockstar]

hey everybody im back from the dead yah so im ready to go after pindicator

 

[pindicator]

I'm currently deliberating between 3 different battle plans, and none are really jumping out. Razing Pharsalos is obviously the next step, but where do we go after that? We need to take a chunk out of Mongolia after All 3 plans go off of razing. The problem is we really don't know where the bulk of Mongolia is.

Plan Blue is probably the worst, but is the safest: after Pharsalos we take down Argos and then head towards Sarai through safe waters. This will also let us reinforce our Mongolian expedition with any troops that we can produce over the next few turns. I don't like Blue because it is not very efficient; however, I wonder how our troops will do for healing.

Plan Red is appealing, because we make a few more stops to really take a notch out of Greece. Finishing off Asoka really isn't too important, but if we see that it's doable then it's there. Again, Red takes the long way to the one outlying Mongolian city we have seen, but it makes some good stops along the way.

Plan Yellow is what I'm leaning towards, but we have ZERO intelligence going that way. Our troops could run into a snake-like island and really have the logistics messed up. I think I'll go with Yellow, and just go out with a Viking mentality: raze and pillage everything I come across, and if things get dicey then back on the boats! Of the two yellow arrows, the left-most is where we've seen cultural borders (but no cities), and the right-most goes to New Sarai. While our force is off towards Mongolia, we can always train and send up new forces to either reinforce or head the other way around the world, or finish off Alex and Asoka.

Okay, Yellow it is. Into the great unknown!

 

[pindicator]

Well, I got a little too eager and botched an attack on Pharsalos. With it being holed up so well, I really should have waited for reinforcements, but decided I could push now and knock off some defenders, heal up, and then continue. Instead I lost a CR3 Grenadier at 90% killed two other LBs, and then decided to wait and make sure I would take the city. So all I did was burn Pharsalos during my turnset.

We got 2 Great People, both merged, during my turns. Of course we picked up the Great Merchant from Economics, but we also birthed a Great Prophet. I started to think how we were a specialist economy, and so I wondered why this civic swap hadn't been made before:

I tried to find another swap that looked good, but everything else was good. So we have an extra specialist now.

One major note: the AI now has Astronomy; galleons have been spotted (and sank, including a boatload of Xbow men from Toku). I've left two galleys un-upgraded; with the funds from Pharsalos I'd really consider upgrading them to Frigates, as we can no longer put galleons out on their own (not that I did that often anyway).

Mongolia is still a ways away. I would consider knocking a city or two of Tokugawa's on the way over. If we want, Argos only has 2 LBs and a mace defending; it could be a good pitstop for a future expedition.

Our troops are on the ruins of Pharsalos. Some are going to need a bit of healing; some are fortified and can be moved onto boats this turn or next if needed. We have a few frigates that have been charting territory for the expedition to Mongolia. I would recommend heading through Toku's territory and picking off some cities. He is just below us on the power graph and I've already sunk a galleon of troops headed towards our island. It doesn't seem worthwile to go after Ceasar: he is weak and he also is very heavily fortified in Rome.

 

[GreyFox]

my on the Mercantilism ... I was thinking to calculate the benefits one free specialist against the cost of 1 anarchy, and then totally forgetting abt it after that.

I think we should split our forces ... the world is simply too large to go around one by one with one giantic stack. IMHO, we should keep building grenedairs + some Musketeers, until cannons are ready. remembering we still have a few galleys waiting to be upgraded to galleons, we can use these to send our new stack towards Mongolia, while our current stack conitue its pillaging and attacking on the weaker cities.

--

 

[Xtream_Rockstar]

hey okay this is the "pick up" and today i got warlords so i feel happy and i will play tomarrow

 

[Mark1031]

I am back. Looking good. Lot's of troops to kill but I think we will pull this off. Greni vs LBs is a slaughter.

 

[Xtream_Rockstar]

ive gotta skip sry tomuch 2 do sry sry

 

[GreyFox]

Welcome back, Mark, hope you'd enjoyed yourself, and you are just in time to pick this up!

Remember this is Emperor, AI tech like mad. I doubt we are going to see grenie vs LB extending anything more than one more round of turnsets.

--

 

[Mark1031]

Pre: well we look to be in great shape at this point. Upgrade the 2 galleys to frigates. I am a big fan of the Navy in these games. We are now low on $$. We seem to have abandoned the main greek/Indian Island. There are some cities and pillaging $$ over there which I would like. While they are no longer a threat I would like to keep them from expanding and keep some sentries for resettlment. For this set my goals will be to continue the local carnage and begin to prepare an expeditionary force.

1655: A galleon I believe with some troops is sunk by caravels. Ouch. Need frigate cover.

1660: Steel in start us toward rifles. Start cranking 1 turn cannons. Find the main Mongol Island and start pillaging sea resources

1685: PP in -> RP.

1690: Take Agros for 207gp. Send off a force of 4 galleon loads of our finest hardened troops backed up with cannon toward Mongolia perhaps via Japan.

1700: Pictures of the main islands of our opponents are attacked. I might have some ships on goto. I know our main force is headed for Japan for next turn. However, I think I would send them on to Mongolia/China as they seem farther along in tech and it would be nice to hit them now but as you wish. It would be fine to start pounding on Japan.

The only thing I would say is that as we clear Islands we should leave sentries to wack settlers so we don;t have to find cities later on. I built mostly cannon on my turns. They are great as CR2 until rifles.

 

[GreyFox]

Great ...

Research-wise I would most probably go Rifling or AssLine. Ultimate aim is to get combustion for destroyers, Artillery for the obvious, and industrialism for tanks.

Great-People wise, since we are less than 200 turns away, I think it is more profitable to light-bulb them if they would learn towards what we want.

Got it, most probably won't play tonight. Likely tomorrow night.

 

[GreyFox]

Inherited turns: Turn 250 (1700 AD)

I thinkthe fores at Japan ar etoo far away from Mongolia ... will attack Toku first. Instead those forces at Greek land will sweep west towards toku's land.

One more thing: Its a waste of time putting up mines outside the BFC ... you will only get resource pop in mines that are being worked. Its actually better off leaving the mines untouched, since at least we would have a forest growth.

Paris equips a Grenadier

IBT:
While defending, Frigate defeats (8.00/8) Mongolian Caravel


Turn 251 (1705 AD)

Someone told us Toku is most powerful ... Mongolia, even as score leader, is not as powerful as us.

We shall see how toku's power drop after Kyoto is gone ...

I decided that we should get ourselves a drydock for experience ... Navy decides the game in this map, me think.

Paris begins building a Drydock

I also cleared Paris's water of the MOngolian infestations:

Frigate promoted to Combat I
While attacking, Frigate defeats (7.04/8) Mongolian Caravel
While attacking, Frigate defeats (4.16/8) Mongolian Caravel
While attacking, Frigate defeats (8.00/8) Mongolian Caravel
Paris finishes Drydock

I unloaded troops outside Kyoto ... and toku decides to waste his cats.

IBT:
While defending, Grenadier defeats (12.00/12) Japanese Catapult
While defending, Grenadier defeats (12.00/12) Japanese Catapult


Turn 252 (1710 AD)

With drydocks, we are -1 health. To compensate, I start a habour (+1 health from crabs). However, Harbour require 2 turns, so I change to a Galleon first for the overflow in hammer to get habour.

Paris begins building a Harbor
Paris starts a Grenadier
Paris starts a Galleon
Frigate promoted to Combat II
While attacking, Frigate defeats (7.52/8) Mongolian Caravel
While attacking, Frigate defeats (8.00/8) Mongolian Caravel
Learn Replaceable Parts
Paris equips a Galleon

Bombardment of Kyoto.


Turn 253 (1715 AD)
Paris begins building a Harbor

Commence attack of Kyoto

While attacking, Grenadier loses to Japanese Longbowman (3.12/6)

:arrgh: how can we lose with >80%!!!!

While attacking, Grenadier defeats (4.32/12) Japanese Longbowman
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (10.08/12) Japanese Longbowman
Cannon promoted to City Raider I
Cannon promoted to Barrage I
While attacking, Cannon defeats (1.44/12) Japanese Grenadier
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (8.40/12) Japanese Longbowman
Grenadier promoted to Combat III
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (7.92/12) Japanese Grenadier
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (7.92/12) Japanese Longbowman
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (6.24/12) Japanese Pikeman
While attacking, Cannon defeats (8.16/12) Japanese Longbowman
Razed Kyoto

Finally ... one lost of grenediar. Damn the RNG.

In the other island, Asoka is croaching back to former Greeks land. This will not do:

While attacking, Grenadier defeats (6.24/12) Indian Longbowman
While attacking, Cannon defeats (8.40/12) Indian Pikeman
Razed Bengal
Paris finishes Harbor


Turn 254 (1720 AD)

Paris starts a Cannon
Galleon promoted to Combat I
Galleon promoted to Medic I

JC decides to send a settler wit two LB to former Greek island ... I have a grenadier waiting. Take out one LB first.

While attacking, Grenadier defeats (12.00/12) Roman Longbowman
While attacking, Frigate defeats (8.00/8) Chinese Caravel
Paris equips a Cannon


Turn 255 (1725 AD)
Paris starts a Grenadier
While attacking, Frigate defeats (8.00/8) Greek Caravel
Grenadier promoted to Cover
Grenadier promoted to Combat II

Roman settle his city ... my grenadier proceed to raze it.

While attacking, Grenadier defeats (3.00/12) Roman Longbowman
Razed Pisae

Troops after Bengal, arrives at next Indian city:

While attacking, Grenadier defeats (6.24/12) Indian Longbowman
Grenadier promoted to Cover
Grenadier promoted to Combat II
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (8.64/12) Indian Longbowman
Razed Chittagong

See this. A sneak attack from Toku ...

Or, more correctly, an attempted sneak attack from toku ... I have ample ships within movement points to take his fleet out before the troops can land.

While attacking, Frigate loses to Japanese Frigate (4.64/8) <-- bad luck again!!!
While attacking, Frigate defeats (0.40/8) Japanese Frigate
While attacking, Frigate defeats (8.00/8) Japanese Frigate
While attacking, Frigate defeats (0.16/8) Japanese Galleon
While attacking, Galleon defeats (2.48/4) Japanese Galleon

Woosh, so much for Toku's attempted campaign.

Paris equips a Grenadier


Turn 256 (1730 AD)
Paris starts a Frigate
Frigate promoted to Combat II

Ha, what's this? A galley with settler??

While attacking, Frigate defeats (8.00/8) Chinese Galley
Paris equips a Frigate


Turn 257 (1735 AD)
Paris starts a Grenadier
Paris equips a Grenadier


Turn 258 (1740 AD)
Paris starts a Galleon
Paris equips a Galleon
Blaise Pascal (Engineer) (Great Engineer) born in Paris

What to do with him? We can merge him, learn 1000+ beakers for SciMeth, or wait for Ass Line to rush Pentagon, or rush Ironworks. Decide to wait for input.


Turn 259 (1745 AD)
Paris starts a Grenadier
Paris equips a Grenadier


Turn 260 (1750 AD)
Paris starts a Cannon
While attacking, Frigate defeats (8.00/8) Roman Caravel

Starts the attack of next Toku city: Tokyo (which apparently is the capital now).

Cannon promoted to City Raider I
Cannon promoted to Barrage I
While attacking, Cannon defeats (0.60/12) Japanese Grenadier
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (4.56/12) Japanese Grenadier
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (3.72/12) Japanese Knight
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (4.92/12) Japanese Longbowman
Grenadier promoted to Cover
Grenadier promoted to Combat II
While attacking, Grenadier defeats (11.40/12) Japanese Longbowman
Musketeer promoted to Combat III
While attacking, Musketeer defeats (3.24/9) Japanese Longbowman

Although we still have 2 units unmoved, I decided against razing the city now. Next player can decide if he wants to finish off Tokyo befor epressing enter, or wait til next turn. Reason why I waited is because Toku has 2 grenadiers guarding mines outside of Tokyo, if we attack, our victorious unit will be exposed alone.

Our troops arrive at Mongolian city:

Shouldn't be a problem. There is another city SE of this, which is much more heavily guarded.

At the Indian front:

2 galleons is available at Paris ... once we have 6 units, next player can send this team off to whever you please. I suggest going for Mongolia.

>>> The Save (1750AD) <<<

Pindicator is UP.

 

[Mark1031]

Looking good. As far as the Eng. I don't know. IIRC we don;t have the health for IW but could just build it anyway and take the hit. I'm guessing this ends with infantry so if we can;t run as many specialists no big deal. No sense holding him for pentagon as it doesn't really help us that much anyway.

Pindicator UP

 

[pindicator]

got it and will play it ... oh, in a few hours i guess
(I'm writing my Epic 6 report right now)

 

[GreyFox]

I don't think it will end with infantry ... Emperor AI tech up a lot faster than Monarch AI. However, on 2nd thought, since tech trading is off, you may be right!

I don't know if IW is worth it ... we are already at 1 turn per cannon stage ... and -2 health is a big blow ... and if we don't have coal, IW is only half effective (IIERC, IW's production modifier is +50% with coal, +50% with iron).

At this kind of stage, I would usually burn GP for tech ... IF the GP was anything other than an engineer ...

--

PS> Pindicator, you are also UP in Fox04

 

[pindicator]

Okay, I'm up in Fox04... um... that may need a skip, I don't know if I'll have time for that tomorrow. Or Monday. Tuesday I can play it; I'll post in the thread.

So what do I do with a Great Engineer? Popping him for a tech was an idea; let's get an idea what our options would be with that. Here's the Great Engineer preference list:

Great Engineer:

Machinery
Assembly Line
Industrialism
Combustion
Metal Casting
Mining
Iron Working
Engineering
Replaceable Parts
Steam Power
Steel
Robotics
Railroad

Steam Power is what he'll give us now, and my plan was to head for Artillery after Rifling. Seeing how the only thing we'll be able to research aside from Steam Power would be Combustion, I don't think popping him is a great plan. Furthermore, he'll only shave off ~1000 beakers, or 2-3 turns worth of research. Not worth it in my opinion.

Also, the 6 base beakers at our current +265% modifier would translate into 21.9bpt (or a 5% increase in beakers), which makes another point against popping him because he would earn the 1022 beakers in only 47 turns.

So we either merge him or use him to build Ironworks. The -2 health from Ironworks can really be seen as a cheap version of a Factory + Coal Plant (-3 health, +50% production); if we don't build a Factory and Power plant then Ironworks actually looks very favorable in this light.

The +50% from Ironworks will net us +14.5hpt immediately (current base production is 29); merging him will net us +8.25hpt immediately (3 base production with our +175% modifier). So, since merging him is pretty well guarenteed to be superior for research, is it superior for production? In other words, is the +6.25hpt difference worth -2health and -21.9bpt?

Here's what tips the iceberg: with the +2 health difference I will just cap Paris' growth right now and hire another Priest Specialist: this will add a net of +5.5hpt & +2gpt, bringing our total difference to +14.5hpt (with the potential of +29hpt) vs +13.75hpt & +21.9bpt & +2gpt.

So after that long-winded start, I merge the Great Engineer and then actually start playing my turns. More to follow...

 

[pindicator]

The following AIs made contributions to the end of the world:

India:

Mongolia:

Japan:

China:

In further news, Japan has Grenadiers and Osaka is well defended:

(I did not attempt to take the city with troops present.)
Who has ever seen Tokugawa with the tech lead for AIs in a game?

Losses this round: 2 cannons, 1 grenadier

Our military status:

There are currently 6 units in Paris; 1 galleon is nearby and 2nd is being made.
Constitution is in 2; I was heading us towards Assembly Plant.

Spoiler Boring Turnlog :

Inherited Turn
I merge the Great Engineer (see prev post)

IT
Rifling -> Nationalism
I've changed my mind on Artillery: we need to research Scientific Method for that and Sci Meth would really set us back research wise (whay an irony).

1) 1755AD
Tokugawa has Grenadiers!

They still go down quickly to CR3 Grenadiers; Tokyo is razed.

Land troops near Samarqand; Frigates bomb it down to 8% Send 2 more galleys full of units towards Mongolia.

2) 1760AD
Bombard Samarqand with our Frigates, then we burn it.
Burn Hyderabad (we had a cannon win at 40%!)

3) 1765AD
Burn Kazan.

4) 1770AD

5) 1775AD
Burn Punjab.
Burn Sanchu.

6) 1780AD
Nationalism -> Constitution
Osaka is heavily defended...

7) 1785AD
Bombard New Sarai
Burn Tiflis, but lose a cannon and a gren (at 85%!)
Decide that Osaka can wait; on the boats again and now heading towards China.

8) 1790AD
Find a Chinese Galleon with a settler; it's sunk.

10) 1800AD
Burn New Sarai
Burn Guangzhou

 

[GreyFox]

9 cities razed
Great Job!

Pretty good analysis on the GE ...

On stagnanting growth of Paris, the thing abt OCC is we have to constantly keep micromanaging the specialists and pop distribution to get the best out of it (instead of letting oevrflow hammers goes to waste, etc etc).

On SciMeth, we had to bite the bullet sooner or later (of-course the later the better, but we have the free scientist from Physics to consider as well). We need it for destroyers and transport. Sea power is everything. I don't think we need artillery though.

Xtream is UP.

 

[Xtream_Rockstar]

sry i gotta take another skip sry sry sry my family is visting and the real world is messing with the civ world