Monarch SG, looking for trainers and trainees

[jb1964]

If you're nearly certain that the city will flip I would consider abandoning it and plopping down a settler.

Currency in only 5 turns! Are we the first into the middle ages?

I just noticed this is very agressive AI's w/ raging barbs and a host of tough opponents. Glad to see ya'll are planning on AW.

 

[Zakharov]

If you're nearly certain that the city will flip I would consider abandoning it and plopping down a settler.

Why didn't I think of that? Definitely the best course of action as I think we might struggle to get 120 units in there. I still think we should sign peace with the Incans as WW is killing us and our military is weakened.

When the city is abandoned the units near it should spread out to block the Incans from putting their own settler down.

I just noticed this is very agressive AI's w/ raging barbs and a host of tough opponents. Glad to see ya'll are planning on AW.

Those settings were doc's idea as he wanted training in a game with lots of fighting. We settled on waging war in a republic government to help him also learn the trading game, so we won't be playing AW unless the team want to change course.

Currency in only 5 turns! Are we the first into the middle ages?

The Incans are also in the MA. Here are the current tech standings from CrpMapStat:

 

[soul_warrior]

AW? never done that but if we do want to go there, id suggest we recover a bit now, get in some 20 turns of peace, change to MON (or should we try FEU? never tried it, and this is basically still a training game ). after we have our base army, walk over INCALAND, and onwards toward the stars!
as the inca are the only ones into the MA, maybe we should press on, get them off of our back, and then revolt (which might slow us down Sci-wise but enable us more research Stick-wise)

off topic - got a new SG in the works, and looking for some brave souls to man the decks. see SW1 - Rule Britannia

 

[Zakharov]

Roster:

soul warrior - up next
jb1964 - on deck
Zakharov
DBear - just played
Formula51 - skipped

 

[soul_warrior]

got it.
will play tonite.
[edit] sorry mates, too crashed to think. but will play tomorow afternoon.
post + save in 18 hours, i hope.

 

[jb1964]

I'm going to jump in and play this evening and have things ready for soul_warrior before he gets back.

I sent him a PM to give him a heads up.

 

[jb1964]

(0) 170 AD
WW is running 40-50%! Eeek!
Make peace w/ Inca and get Monarchy for 80g. Maybe we can build the HG.
Make peace w/ the Babs and get 9g.
There’s still more space to settle and an open iron and gem. We’ll set our sites on grabbing those for future trades.
We need luxury deals!
Currency to Abe for spices and gold.
Currency to Hammy for silks.
Currency to Joan for ivory and incense.
The AI’s are not interested in any type of gpt deal so I assume we trashed our reputation w/ one of those wars.
We’re still in our GA.
Change Veii and Antium to settlers.
I’m changing everything else to a library for culture and because we’re still likely to be doing our own research despite owning the GL. I don’t think we can count on the AI’s to keep up the pace and having the GL just to deny it isn’t a bad play at this level. Besides, we’ll probably have to be trading techs for luxuries until we get our own.
Entertainment is down to 0% and research is at 50% bringing Feud in 10 turns.
We have 15 cities and 13 workers. We need 10-17 more workers.
It looks like we used to have some seafaring units.

IBT: Nothing more than the Mayans moving out of our territory.

(1) 190
Hammy has Engineering, which he drew going into the next age, but won’t trade. Yep, our reputation is really poor.

We can trade Lit to everyone but the Mayans. The best deal would be to the Inca for furs but we don’t need the happiness and we don’t want lose out on the GL at this point.
I disband our two warriors.
Changing over a few more cities to settlers and MM’ing them between growth and production.
We nee to get some cities down by our former cites and rush some culture to get them to flip back.

IBT: Nothing, however, the Inca have quite a large swordsman army.

(2) 210
Well, I should have worked the Literature deals because now it’s spread around and our fur deal is gone.
OK, the libraries can wait. I’m vetoing myself and pushing more settlres.

IBT: Barbs appearing and giving the Americans some trouble. I weep for them.

(3) 230
Barb hunting.

(4) 250
Found Brundisium,
Kill two barb horses and barb in the path of our settlers.

IBT

(5) 260
Found Syracuse and Bloomsbergium
We have a Incan archer wandering through our territory but we’re in no position to insist he leave.

IBT:

(6) 270
Not Much

(7) 280
The Inca and Babylon have Feudalism and Engineering. They beat us to it by two turns.
Found Palmyra

(8) 290
Found Iron Town.
We sell literature to the French for 39g. GPT deals are right out because our reputation is trashed. This is not good.

(9) 300
BTW, our GA ended some time ago so builds, like the GL, have really slowed down.
We found Hillendale by squeezing it into the hills.
We found Tarentum.
Research set to minimum right now, cash is low, on Monotheism. Hopefully the Americans or the Maya come up w/ Engineering so we can trade. If any of the other civs were scientific I would gift them into the middle ages in hopes that they would draw Engineering.

I’m setting Rome up for growth in 5 turns. This delays the GL by 4 turns by reducing production 10 shields, however, after the growth we can go back to working the forests and put the extra citizen on a mined plane and gain back the lost shields.
Veii is set up to grow and pump a worker every two turns.

(10) 310
No trades to be had this turn.
With settlers on their way to what’s left of the open territory we should push culture w/ libraries.

I'll try and add some pictures later.

 

[Zakharov]

I don't see how we could have trashed our rep. We only declared once - on the Incans - and I made sure all of our units were in our territory when I did it.

I think the reason for no gpt deals is because the AIs do not have the infrastructure to give us any gold. It is the early MA after all (on Monarch difficulty).

Roster:

soul warrior - up next
Zakharov - on deck
DBear
Formula51
jb1964 - just played

 

[jb1964]

OK, we'll keep testing our ability to trade w/ the AI's. Maybe we need to set up embassies. It’s just that when I offer a tech for 39g it’s a deal but when I ask 1gpt for the same tech the advisor says they would never agree to such a deal. Also, there's no deal good enough to trade our extra gems. These are pretty strong indications that we broke a deal, missed a unit in enemy territory (even a curragh) when DoW, or had a trade route cut because of the war.

I’ll take a look through the other logs and see if I can glean any information.

We have seven more cities and some nice territory. The wars have set back building of culture and other infrastructure. Being commercial we should capitalize on that and get the markets and banks up in addition to the libraries. I would still make the libraries a priority because we’re sure to need techs for luxury trades. However, every build order in the queue is totally up to the next leader.

 

[Zakharov]

On Monarch and below I never seem to be able to get gpt deals before the late MA/early IA. I think the AI just don't have the spare gold to trade yet.

If I am wrong then this may well turn out to be a AW game after all.

 

[soul_warrior]

ok here is the save
410 ad

 

[soul_warrior]

and the log

pre turn - a ok. great job JB.

1 (320) get booted by abe. build Nicomedia, stealing 3 Inca tiles. change Ravenna to settler. irrigate and road some tiles. legion hunts barb camp - up 25g, no promo.

2 (330) Inca archer keeps heading inland. another on joins him at our north end. keeping close watch.

3 (340) Tiawanku flips back to inca. were down 2 legions. retreat workers from harms way.

Hammy building Suntzu, Joan building GLib. Inca beat us to Horsietown, so will head abit east of there. Inca Archer very deep - move in troops to guard workers and towns.

4 (350) inca demand we move our troops. only workers in, so we comply. Inca start Suntzu. Hittites start GLib. Rome grows - MM for GLIB in 9. change neapolis settler to pike and rush for 56g - that archer scares me. move defender right on top of him.
techwise - Inca are up Eng, America up Eng & Babylon up Eng. Maya even. aztecs, hittites and french are way behind. looking for deals - best is feud for Eng from Abe (who is also short on horses and iron). we deal.

5 (360) neapolis builds pike > galley.

6 (370) maya building Suntzu.

7 (380) Antium finished granary > Marketplace. Inca Archer disapears. JOY IN ROME . start the great Veii - Cumae Highway. build Seleucia (alt. horsie town)

8 (390) zzz

9 (400) Ravenna builds settler, which heads to Neapolis (& galley). start barracks.

10 (410) nothing much on my part, but we lose our supplies of SPICES, IVORY, SILKS & INCENSE.
ITS UPTO NEXT PLAYER TO SECURE MORE LUX's ASAP!!!!!!!!

have a great weekend all.

 

[jb1964]

First order of businees for next player is to get luxes from France. America, Babs and Aztecs. If you can avoid dealing a tech or gold to the Inca, or dealing with them altogether, I would.

Without the luxuries we have 8 cities that are going to riot.

 

[Zakharov]

Got it.

Why wasn't Tiwanaku abandoned and resettled as was discussed earlier?

@soul warrior, did you get my pm about the image tags?

 

[Zakharov]

As I thought, our rep is still intact because we can trade for luxuries. There are no gpt deals yet because the AI does not have a strong enough economy.

All of the new border towns are a flip risk.

These turns were fairly uneventful. My main points of focus were:
- To get some cities size 7+ for the extra unit support.
- To get the luxuries needed to support size 7+ cities.
- Building barracks and horsemen in our cities for a mass upgrade to knights.

The border towns are still on a long term Library build as they will be unproductive whatever they build.

Some highlights:

410(0)- I need luxuries, so I trade with:
The French: Get Ivory + Incense for Monarchy + 1gpt + 13g
The Aztecs: Get Dyes for Feudalism
Happiness is no longer a problem

430(2)- Legion kills barb - promoted to elite

440(3)- Rome completes the GLib. 3 civs switch to Sun Tzu's.
Legion disperses a barb camp.

450(4)- Babs have Invention and are building Leo's.

460(5)- Babs demand horses. NO! They declare war.

480(7)- Incans + Americans have Monotheism. Incans also have Invention.

490(8)- We get Mono and Inv from the GLib.

Notes:

The plan should be to carry on with my focus points above until Chivalry comes in. Then it will be time for our knights to attack.

A couple of the larger cities have markets.

I have some workers chopping the forests around Rome. It needs to get to size 12 asap to be our powerhouse (in terms of production and commerce).

I don't know where the settler in a galley was intended to go. It was lost to the sea. I can't see anywhere else for a new city to be built.

Economy is currently running at 10/0/0, 1304g in the treasury, +113gpt.

Roster:

DBear - up next
Formula51 - on deck?
jb1964
soul warrior
Zakharov - just played

 

[soul_warrior]

@ ZAKHAROV - that settler was meant to go S-SE. there is a nice 2 city island down there. or atleast it was unpopulated 2/3rds into my last turn. it would be a far away low yield colony, but we might get some future resource off of it.

about the Horsie plan. as CHIVALRY is a deadend tech, maybe we should BLine to Military Tradition? will take longer, but still my ususal path.
speed is a must in our troops, as we wnat only the shortest war possible, but even knights will need some support troops.
and another thought - while we are heading towoards MT, we get those cool Muskets AND Cannon. now these would be a formidable SoD.
third and final thought - get Chivalry - upgrade to knights. BLine to MT. OTW get muskets and later cannon. start sending the knights in, followed by musket-cannon stacks. lokks YUMMY.

and another thought - should we try for LEO's? maybe start a prebuild? we sure could use those half priced knights-cavs. even with our WONDERFUL economy.

 

[Zakharov]

@soul warrior, do you mean the island in the image below? It was already settled at the start of my turns. There was literally nowhere visible that I could settle so I sent the galley to look for a new island in the fog. In hindsight I probably should have joined the settler to a border town to boost pop.

Regarding your plan, the only problem I see with it is a possible lack of a saltpeter resource. That would mean no muskets, cannons or cavalry. However, with all those mountains you would have thought we have at least one source somewhere.

 

[jb1964]

Our footprint is looking quite nice.

So the next plan, whatever it may be, will result in the expulsion of the Inca.

What government do the Babs have? Think they'll ever land a single unit on our shores?

With the GL in hand, if we're going to trade tech away for luxuries we should shop it around to everyone else on the same turn to try and get maximum value.

 

[Zakharov]

I'm not sure on the Babs government. They have a couple of galleys sailing around our coast, but they seem to be empty. By the time they get any units to us they will probably be ready to talk.

As for the techs for luxuries trading, I gave Monarchy to the French and Feudalism to the Aztecs as they were the only civs missing those respective techs.

By the time Chivalry comes in we should have a huge pile of gold for upgrades, so I don't know if Leo's is necessary. It would be nice to have though.

 

[soul_warrior]

@ Zakharov - i guess it was that island. i could have sworn there was some free space. well, it could be worse

maybe we should ask the INCA to build leo's for us?

@ JB - INCA out, ROME in. and i dont think baby-lon will send serious threats, but we should maybe keep thier side of the border well protected, and maybe build a couple of patrol galleys?
and the tech trading... dont u always do trading sessions with everybody? u lose huge amounts of cash-tech-lux if u dont max your trading. in the turn afterwards u lose more the 50% value. and u give them a chance to trade among themselves, which is bad - keeping u out of the lop.