Monarch Training 2

[Admiral Kutzov]

The rest are just a midnight snack for us. They have some luxuries, but going to war will bring much more unhappiness and expense than any real benefit.

I was thinking of crunch n munch wars of 4-5 turns. go in with a combat settler or two, plop on the lux, kill the 3-4 closest enemy cities and then make peace. Keeps the unhappy people down. Need cash to rush harbors, culture, etc.

I threw the palace option out there for discussion. If my name was Elvis, I'd have built it on the home island already.

 

[viper275]

I wouldn't move the palace because our core cities are on the main island and the palace move would weaken them, right? London seems like a good place for the palace.

 

[Detlef Richter]

I prefer a build up on our main-lands, somewhere at the middle-east of it.
This brings us very good prod locations for the spaceship parts.
We should only stop the war against the Dutch, if they are willing to give all theire techs to us.

 

[danz]

1.1300: Look at the armada off English shore, and the SOD in Germany. You know what, guys? We don't need an FP. We can finish this game before we can build one!

IT: Dutch land near Glaucester.

2.1305: Send armada North. Nothing strong enough to kill Crusader, hoping our muskets can protect our city.

IT: Crusader attacks and goes down in a hail of musket fire.

3.1310: Armada keeps going North past Ottoman turf. We have an ROP with them already, good stuff. Mis-click caravel, sending it into the ocean. Good thing we have so many troops! Pester Germany but they won't declare. An unsuccessful steal pushes them over the edge and tey declare war. Our SOD immediately heads toward Berlin.

IT: Unlucky caravel sinks with three of our troops. Yuck. Spain building Bach's.

4.1315: Repel second dutch landing (cavalry!) and take Trondheim. They don't ofer much for peace. It's just as well, our whole army is coming up to say hello. They are building cavalry but don't have many cities. At least two of them are building wonders. Kill 4 German longbows that tried to cross the mountains around Berlin. Advance SOD toward Berlin.

IT: More German longbows expose themselves. Fools don't have any horses. This is pathetic.

5.1320: Armada reaches last bit of English territory, ready to go into Ducth waters. SOD bound for Berlin reaches its gates. Kill 3 German longbows. Dutch building Smith's. Their entire home island is building wonders. It's like taking candy from a baby.

IT: Nothing much.

6.1325: Pound Berlin. It cycles through 5 muskets and one longbow. Capture at a cost of 2 anient cavs and 2 knights. We gain posession of the Oracle, Sistine's and Sun Tsu's. Can't raze that!!! Armada lands in Ottoman territory, ready to head to the hills. No reason to give the Ducth any easy shots.

IT: Zulu declares on Portugal. Dutch cav attacks SOD, retreats. They also land a crusader near Intombe. Lucky they keep landing one at a time. 3-6 could probably take any of the smaller islands away from us. Germany requests peace but won't give much in return. They still don't get it...

7.1330: Kill Dutch crusader and redlined cavalry. Advance SOD on Der Hague, going around Amsterdam. Next two waves of troops can take care of Amsterdam.

IT: Nothing much.

8.1335: Sink Dutch caravel, hopefully with some troops.

IT: Nothing much.

9.1340: 1st wave reaches Der Hague. 2nd and 3rd wave send their knights to catch up with the 1st wave and are then combined into slow-moving SOD bound for Amsterdam.

IT: The Dutch are finally scared. They attack, killing one of our muskets. The Germans kill another but lose a longbow.

10.1450: Time to wrap up this set of turns. Bombard Hague and take it, losing 2 longbows (not enogh knights on this island, better lose longbows) and killing 3 swiss mercs and 2 muskets. We capture Knights Templar (yey, no more annoying crusader ladings!!) and Magellan's. Nice! Now let's clean up the Germans. Take Frankfurt and Hamburg at a cost of 2 knights, killing 5 muskets and 2 longbows. And guess what? We capture the Great Library. Get ready for the deluge of techs next turn.

To sum up, we're getting a bunch of techs for free with the Great Library. This will expire the Temple of Zeus, so no more free ancient cavs. But we can upgrade all our trebuchets in any city, since we also have Sun Tsu's now. The next player can extort a humiliating payment from the Germans and the Dutch or take them down, your choice. I would prefer to take them both, otherwise we have to think about flips.

 

[Sir Clive]

Got it !

Haven't got time to analyse anything as I have to be off to work in 10 mins but just having read Danz's report it looks good.

Think I will probably stay at war as suggested but may change my mind after I have looked at the save.

Glad we are at no research variant - I always find it difficult to know what to research and at what % to set the science slider to when I have the GL !

 

[danz]

Actually, I just realized I made an AK

We can build universities, that means the GL is no longer functional. We'll have to get those techs as concessions after all. But that doesn't mean we have to sign peace right away. We could take over all of the main islands before deciding to ign peace with OCC civs formerly known as Germany and the Netherlands.

 

[Sir Clive]

Actually, I just realized I made an AK

We can build universities, that means the GL is no longer functional. We'll have to get those techs as concessions after all. But that doesn't mean we have to sign peace right away. We could take over all of the main islands before deciding to ign peace with OCC civs formerly known as Germany and the Netherlands.

OK - I am about to play now. I think I will stay at war with Germany and Netherlands for at least a few turns . Most of the main island is building banks / marketplaces, most of the outlying islands are on courthouses. I may rush a few of these so I can build some more military.

Should be able to post at least the first five (possibly all 10) later tonight.

 

[Sir Clive]

Pre turn check.

We are at war with Germany and Netherlands.

Our troops are farly spread out - apart from a smallish stack south of Berlin
and a bigger stack east of Amsterdam we don't have many troops on the islands.
Amsterdam has Cops, Toledo has nothing much so I'm not sure either is particularly valuable
to us so I am undecided which to attack first. Decide to keep going for both
of them - maybe leave them one small city each . The stack on the German island has a fair
way to move before it can get within range of any of the German towns

I'm probably going to rush some of the non military builds on our main island so that
they can switch to building a few more knights.

Hit Enter ....

IT - Hague quells 3 resistors but still riots

Get Navigation and Music Theory from Spain for 400g + Chemistry. Nobody else has
anything we can do a trade for. Bath and Maastricht are not growing
because they don't have a harbour and not enough grassland . They are building
courthouses . I'm going to rush harbours here and in other coastal towns
which are having difficulty growing when I can . Population is power !! (IMHO at least)

1350 AD (1) Trebs bombard Amsterdam - don't have much effect.Trebs in stack south of Berlin move
southwards - uncover Leipzig (size 11) under FOW ! Find we we have a Caravel with 2 settlers
aboard near the Hague. Nowhere to settle at the moment so leave them there for now.

IT not a lot

1355 AD (2) More bombardment near Amsterdam and Berlin. Some troops near Leipzig sneak out of the fog and
capture a couple of our trebs

IT Rush a load of Banks / Marketplaces on the mainland . Switch to more military where possible.
Now we have Navigation our Galleys can cross Ocean squares so start moving some of them
about to uncover the rest of the map. Would like to ship troops over to the islands
but we don't really have any spare

1360 AD (3)More bombardment near Amsterdam and Berlin. Not much effect . I'm inclined to start getting
these troops pillaging next turn (unless we can get something decent for peace) since
we are not making much headway and re-inforcements are too far away. Caravels uncover
more map.

IT Germans and Dutch continue to bombard us . War weariness is becoming increasingly difficult.
Have to employ more clowns. Decide to see if we can get a decent deal for peace.

Get Peace + Economics + Physics for Peace + 1700g from Germany .
Get Peace + Metallurgy for Peace + 800g from Dutch

Cost us a bit of cash but we still have 2.5K in the bank , we're making over 500 gpt and now have Economics so
should be able to make a bit more. Wish we had got a leader out of the wars to rush
the FP but we didn't . Still worries me not having FP this late. Aim for the next few turns,
we will be making lots of cash so build up the infrastructure, try to get a prebuild
going for the FP somewhere sensible and keep up in techs.

We can now get incense from the Ottomans but they want 3 luxs + cash for it and we
don't really need it since we are now at peace.

Portugal are at war at the moment with Dutch , Zulu and Aztec so I'm prepared to let them fight
it out for a bit whilst we put money in the bank , build , and get reinforcements out
to the islands (hopefully)

Only tech we are down now is Democracy which only Netherlands have (and will not sell us)

 

[danz]

Good turns, Sir Clive!

I wouldn't worry about the troops. We should start building cavalry soon, so there is no sense building knights now. We have enough knights and ancient cavs out there, and upgrading them will cost us a decent chunk of cash. So markets and banks are the way to go for now. We're sort of "in between" militaries, as you discovered right before you made peace. Our offensive stats have to get better before we can wage war efficiently again.

I also wouldn't worry about all the techs. Things like Democracy and Musical Theory are useless to us. We'll probably end the game as a Republic, and techs that are only used to build wonders are not worth a dime when we can let the AI build the wonder and then take it away at will.

Military Tradition is nice, and so are the rest of the required techs so we can reach Nationalism and riflemen.

As far as the FP goes, if we get a leader, we can rush it, otherwise why bother. If we decide to mop up the smaller civs, I bet we can get a Domination win in under 20 turns. The only two serious contenders, the Germans and the Dutch, are gassed. The others never had any gas to begin with. Those SOD's from Germany and the Netherlands could easily take out all the other AI civs out of the game without any reinforcements, except for maybe the Ottomans.

p.s. When negotiating with an AI, never take their offer. Talk them down (or up, if they are the ones paying). You can usually get a huge discount that way. Also, in this variant, try to pay in GPT whenever possible. It will give them money that they can put toward science, but can't readily use to buy and upgrade a lot of units that could hurt us.

 

[Sir Clive]

1365 AD (4)Not a lot

IT - Germans and Dutch complain about our troops still in their territory. Apologise.
Berlin flips to the Germans and we lose Sistine Chapel
Dutch are up Democracy and Mil Trad, Germany are up Mil Trad. We are up on all the rest
but none have anything to offer. Hamburg could be in danger of flipping . I'm going
to try to prevent this when I can but I cannot do much since it is still n resistance
so I cannot rush anything

1370 AD (5) Settle Oxford between Trondheim and Bath.

IT - Germans and Dutch complain again - I can't get the troops out any faster .
Dutch start Smiths. No trades available. We have 41% world area, 53 % population.
Biggest rivals are the Ottomans at 10% area, 11% pop. My opinion is our
next opponents (once we have built some military ) should be the Aztecs.
We can ship troops to Konigsberg (when we have some) and then ship them across
to Texcoco and finish them off fairly quickly . We need to build the military first though !
Get Military tradition from the Germans for 1700g


1375 AD (6) Nothing -

IT Germans start building Smith's . Smith's would be nice if we
could get it but our best bet is London which would take 26 turns. It is currently building
JS Bach . I started this as since thought it might be worth it for War weariness but suggest
we should leave it as a pre-build for Smith's (if we can get it) or other. Rush Marketplace
in the Hague. Start building Cavalry on the main Island. I have changed my mind about shipping
trooops to Konigsberg. Better to move them on the main island to Rostov and then
it is just a short boat trip west to Tlatelolco. I'll start moving some ships there.

1380 AD (7) Hurry Courthouse in Portsmouth. I am thinking that if we are going to build the FP
outside our main island this might be a possibility as it is the biggest town on our second
island. Move some troops in a boat towards Tlatelolco.

IT Rush Aqueduct in Portsmouth. Netherlands now have Magnetism . They are up Democracy
and Magnetism on us , Germany are level in tech and we are up on everyone else. We're
now making 651gpt so I'm going to rush a few more courthouses / banks / marketplaces

1385 AD (8) General movement of boats with troops towards Aztec territory. Am going to
continue to be nice to them for the time being though since we need to build more
troops (and quick)

IT Switch Warwick to Smith's - we have quite a few cav builds so might as well have
another prebuild. Upgrade of Treb to Cannon is only 15g - will do some this turn.
Think about trying to steal tech safely from Germany but decide to use the money to build up
more military instead

1390 (9) Upgrade a load of trebs to cannons. Rush Harbour in Hamburg. Rush Courthouse in Berwick

IT - Nothing

1395 (10) Troops board boats where possible to heads towards the Aztecs. There may still
be the odd boat / troop headed towards Rostov to set sail towards Tlateloco. There is 1
full boat west of Texcoco , 1 full boat east of Texcoco and 2 knights in a boat South
of Texcoco. Also 2 boats full of Cannons by the Hague which we might as well send there.
The Hague is well defended and isn't under threat so ahould be OK.


Conclusion - we are still up in pace on tech and we have a big territory / population advantage.
We will find it difficult to wipe the bigger civs out quickly without building more military
(that's why I decided to target the Aztecs). We've got lots of money for upgrades - I favour
upgrading trebs to Cannon and building more Cannon. If we are going to to get rid of those
size 12 towns we need more power - Trebs were useless against Amsterdam and Berlin

Like last time I actually ended up with less towns thatn I started with However this time
I think we are probably in no weaker a position than we started with and since several
other civs are at war we may be able to build whilst they kick the **** out of each other
Unfortunately Germans and Dutch (our main rivals) are not at war

Save game and SS to follow

 

[Sir Clive]

Saved game

 

[Sir Clive]

Good turns, Sir Clive!

p.s. When negotiating with an AI, never take their offer. Talk them down (or up, if they are the ones paying). You can usually get a huge discount that way. Also, in this variant, try to pay in GPT whenever possible. It will give them money that they can put toward science, but can't readily use to buy and upgrade a lot of units that could hurt us.

I do always negotiate the offer and try to get the best deal available.
For example the Peace + Economics + Physics for Peace + 1700g from Germany they originally wanted Peace + a couple of luxs + world map + 2200g (something like that - can't remember exactly)

Might not have been great but it was the best I could get and thought it was the best time to take it as we were in serious danger of losing a couple of cities I still have a lot to learn on trading but I am quite crap at warfare so if I can get peace for something useful I try to beat the AI down and get the best deal I can (although I am nowhere near the level of the Deity / Sid guys unfortunately)

Re GPT deals - having read a fair few of the higher level (i.e emperor / deity) games I have always been led to believe that it is usually bad news to do GPT deals since this means that you cannot declare war without behaving dishonourably / ruining your rep. Since we were potentially going to be at war with all and sundry I decided to avoid any gpt deals. We had plenty of cash so I thought I would use it . I'd be grateful if someone could point me at an explanation of this.

 

[Bede]

Re GPT deals - having read a fair few of the higher level (i.e emperor / deity) games I have always been led to believe that it is usually bad news to do GPT deals since this means that you cannot declare war without behaving dishonourably / ruining your rep. Since we were potentially going to be at war with all and sundry I decided to avoid any gpt deals. We had plenty of cash so I thought I would use it . I'd be grateful if someone could point me at an explanation of this.

lurker's comment:
As always it depends on what you want to accomplish. GPT deals for tech or resources to the AI will make the technology pace faster if the world is genrally at peace. If you sell luxuries to the AI for GPT or cash that will also fuel their research budgets as they will put more citizens to work, generating more cash per turn fro them at home. (The AI does not use the luxury slider but employs clowns or other specialists to manage happiness in their cities, costing them gpt.)

It is my understanding that the AI will never run a deficit, so if you send them cash they will use it for troop upgrades or rushes (if the government allows it), so the end result is more and higher grade oppostion troops.

So, in your situation, the optimum strategy might be to eliminate the weaker nations and feed gpt and luxuries to the scinetifically strongest. The pace of technology discovery will increase and the cost to you of technology you buy will go down as the fewer nations left in the world the lower the cost of new knowledge. That is exactly the converse of the situation in the early game when the best strategy involves the maximum number of trading partners.

When you get around to breaking deals the only exploit is the false peace treaty. Dishonrable conduct carries its own penalty, as then the only way to do a term deal is through the use of extortion and you then risk war when you may not want it. It does add spice to the game, though!!

If your goal is world domination it looks like you guys are well on the way. Nice work, gents.

 

[Keiji]

Wow I'm up again already? Ok, got it. Don't know if I'll be able to play today though. So it might be tomorrow. To bad we lost Berling to the Germans again. I liked those wonders.

 

[Detlef Richter]

It looks that we go on conquest. So in my oppinion it's no problem to capture it back. But we should decide on this.

 

[Sir Clive]

To bad we lost Berling to the Germans again. I liked those wonders.

Yes - very annoying we couldn't do anything about it. I tried starving it right down but it never stopped revolting which meant I couldn't rush any cultural improvements

 

[Detlef Richter]

Don't worrie, with such far away citys, you can only do one thing to protect against flips, whipout the civ.

 

[Keiji]

Well I took a look at the save. From what I can see our military forces are awfully spread out. So I'm a bit hesistant to declare on the Aztec immediately. Perhaps I could set up for an invasion like I did last time, that seemed to work well.

On another note, I've noticed that the city of water's pass is still there. Perhaps we should abandon it, because it is keeping Liverpool and Newcastle from the high production squares (Liverpool has two tax collectors because it is out of workable tiles.

 

[danz]

Well I took a look at the save. From what I can see our military forces are awfully spread out. So I'm a bit hesistant to declare on the Aztec immediately. Perhaps I could set up for an invasion like I did last time, that seemed to work well.

I agree with Keiji. No reason to declare on Aztecs at all. Might as well finish the Germans first. Once Berlin is surrounded by orange squares on all sides and Germany is an OCC or, better yet, gone, it won't flip. Signing peace right after a big victory in the middle of enemy territory is a sure flip. The Germans have no horses, so taking them out would be easy. We can try a tech steal from them (not careful, immediate) and they will declare on us. Or we can upgrade our army and then declare. Either way, we should wipe them out fast, before they flip the rest of our gains on the island! Peace is in their interest, not ours.

On another note, I've noticed that the city of water's pass is still there. Perhaps we should abandon it, because it is keeping Liverpool and Newcastle from the high production squares (Liverpool has two tax collectors because it is out of workable tiles.

Probably a good idea. We have a lot of conquered cities to use for unit support. We can thin out the home island.

 

[danz]

I do always negotiate the offer and try to get the best deal available.
For example the Peace + Economics + Physics for Peace + 1700g from Germany they originally wanted Peace + a couple of luxs + world map + 2200g (something like that - can't remember exactly)

Sorry, I saw the round numbers and assumed you just took their offer. If the deal was Economics + Physics + 2134G (entire treasury) + 2GPT (entire surplus income) then I would be happy

You can tweak the dela in negotiations until 1 GPT takes it from "ok" to "close". Until that's the case, you can do better. I'm not suggesting moving the deal 1G at a time, but use a binary search algorithm to cut the difference between "ok" and "not ok" in half until you get down to 1G or 2G or 5G or whetever your patience allows. At this stage of the game, 10G more or less is not a big deal. On 3900 BC, every penny counts. So adjust your stopping point accordingly.