MrB4...Beyond the PC Problems

[Belisar]

Preturn Analysis:
General Flavius Belisarios takes command of the ottoman army, ~230 years too late compared to the historical course.
Ahh, the Phants

, love them, hopefully the Indian army has no

The army seems to be ready, kudos to batter (alias Generalquartiermeister)
I notice 2 of the swords are already CR-2, excellent, the barbs have their use.

... My plan will be to build 4-5 cats, mass our chariot/ax/swords...

But wait, where is my 4th cat? Ah, you tought your general_at_field would not notice such a small detail, hehe.
That's the fate of all great commanders, not enough support

760AD (224)
Copper in Istanbul is really nice.
I scroll cities and make some minor tweaks, switch a few tiles and get 1 turn for Philo.
Fit in a Col in Konya, it's faster than the market. I also set a priest in Konya immediately, this should have been done already.
When Bursa is working a lot of scientists we will have to wait for ages until we get a prophet.
Edrine set to cat, we will lose 1 or 2 at Bursa. Also sneak in a quick galley in Istanbul.
Ok, so Gandhi has the SoZ, from all the WWs he had to chose this one, we better be fast here.

775AD (225)
Gandhi has 2 additional swords running around. This is were our phants will come in handy.
Connect the southern city to our road network.

790AD (226)
Istanbul's borders epand to level 4

805AD (227)
This is interesting, Gandhi built a missionary in Bombay, he will convert Delhi soon.
We begin clearing the jungle in the south.
1 worker is sent to chop the useless forests between Ankara and Edrine.

820AD (228)
Cat finished in Edrine, Set to phant. As a general rule of thumb, don't cut the supply of an advancing army
Galley completed in the capital.
*Trumpeter* *Trumpeter* ahead, immortality is waiting!
translation: the army is marching.

835AD (229)
Our forces arrive at the Indian borders.
Gandhi has converted Delhi and Bombay has already expanded borders, 40% defense.

850AD (230)
And so the adventure begins. The main stack captures an indian worker mining on the hill outside the desert town.
Because the town itself is protected by an axeman only, I send a chariot which can reach the town on the same turn.
We kill the axe and our chariot is now the first unit with 10XP.

860AD (231)
Now Gandhi makes us this present. Instead of retreating, his sword steps on open ground, right before us.

One of the phants kills the sword, gaining enough XP for the next level, which will be shock, gotta love those

870AD (232)
One more battle in open ground, Gandhi sends an axe/sword combo.
Time for combined arm tactics. The sword is easely killed by the shock-phant and the axe by a chariot.
On the other hand, the AI did a smart move by whipping an axe in Bombay, a counter against our swords.

880AD (233)
The attack on Bombay is a bit tricky, hills and 40% culture defense. Our agent successfully revolts the city.

The first cat dies and does only marginal damage, the second retreats and the defenders are badly injured.
I send in a CR-1 sword, he has a 1:3 chance to beat the strength-4 axe, the top defender, "cheap meat" to get the attack going.
But... Wahooo, he wins, our first lucky strike. Great General Muhammad Akbar is born in Edrine
Now the rest of the party should be easy, a strenght 1.6 axe, 2.3 sword and 2.2 archer.
I used this 3 battles to promote our Cr-2 swords, we now have already 2 CR-3 swords, unfortunately one was severly wounded.
At the cost of 1 cat, we gained Bombay and 80 gold which pays the support of the army. Ok, should be honest here, we should have lost one sword too.

890AD (234)
WW starts to get intense, 6 turns of war and we have alread 2-3 unhappy faces due to WW, after a bit MM most cities still have 1 over the happy cap.
3 turns to reach Delhi for our main stack.

900AD (235)
Gandhi whipped an archer in Delhi, he has no metal any more

910AD (236)
We get Philo first and found Taoism in Samsun. The additional religions will come in handy if we switch to Free Religion later in the game.
I set research to metal casting as we need the forges and it's on the way to optics which we should make a priority.

920AD (237)
The attack on Delhi, Gandhi now has 4 archers, 1 spear and 1 sword in the city
The agent revolts the city and 3 cats attack first, 1 survives and all defenders are on ~50% of their strength.
The attack itself is carried out by 4 swords and 2 phants, all of them have over 97% probability for a win.

I stop here after 12 turns, some things to discuss.
A CR-3 sword is ready to attack the city but I left the desicion for my successor MrB (alias Generaltruppeninspektor)
I tought this over and it may be best to take the city. It is already 920AD and it would take a while to get a new city up and running
whereas Delhi can pay for itself quickly and run nearly as many merchants.
In the long run I count 5 additional farm tiles which would allow ~11 specialists after biology.
We get the added benefit of SoZ which will make it very hard for the AI if they declare at us.
I would take his techs and gold, stop WW and get our economy running again (courthouses in the new cities, markets elsewhere).
During the 10 turns at peace we can build 2,3 cats and get units over to the island. We then repeat our little game,
taking all but one of his cities and getting the next line of techs while we specialize on the optic-line.

Our GG is waiting in Edrine, I would specialize one military city.
on a final note, I checked civics and as stated the difference between the current system and caste is 3 gpt but
we should complete the prophet in Konya after the current scientist in Bursa anyway.

SAVE link should work now

 

[batteryacid]

Great turns! THe save looks nice. ghandi should fall , perehaps we can press him into goving us another city during "peace " talk.
We should build then sea crafts for exploration

For the city: I agree with you; it would be regrettable to loose a 6 pop city now and another 6-7 turns of production and growth in another city, but I want to hear what MrB will say

btw: Save link is not ok, it tells http//:http//: at the beginning, (I managed the download by correcting the link manually)

I know, I was only able to build 3 cats during my turns, but I knew you could still manage with 1 or 2 units missing

So there are still 2 cities to fund, new iron city and beaver city

Anything else to discuss? Whats techstrat after Metal Casting? Machinery and Guilds? Paper and Education?

 

[Belisar]

Even if Gandhi was willing to give us a city we would never accept it as maintenance would be a problem (Bombay and Delhi will already be costly)
Number 1 priority at the moment is our economy, way better to get his tech and gold.
MrB knows all about oszillating war so we are in good hands. And I think when your turn comes up we will hit him again for the next line of techs. This way we can focus our research and keep our army busy (and getting promoted)

Tech: We still need some for optics, we also need CS for the production city in the north.
Guilds would not hurt either as it would allow rather powerfull workshops together with caste.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Hi, Folks! With my parents away I have time to play today in the afternoon. I have alook at the save and there are some points:
Oue car builds the galleys (I guess 3-4) after the market). I agree on taking the capital (damn AI and its city placement ).
Revolt to CS is not neccessary at the moment, maybe after we also build some workshops (but I guess only our cap can profit from those) or after we get the prophet. One biggie: Revolt to pacifism? Would shorten the waittime for the GP. It saves 5 gold but units cost 1 additional support...(I guess those over the free units limit); which would be around 10. Edit: Vassalage/pacifism combo could work for us...


And finally: instructor (preferred by me) or mil. academy (cosidered a bug; should only be buildable after the research of mil. science)?
Tech: I think we beeline to compass to get tradeoptions + the journey around the world.

And: what is your opinion on spy action? Did it help considerably? I would have revolted Dheli right at the beginning of the war, which would have meant 1 archer less.

I will play at 18h30 or so. Until then your opinions will be considered.

Edit: Even with the current unrest we are no.1 in production and population, 2nd in commerce and 3rd in cropyield adn 3rd in mil.

 

[Belisar]

On civics:
I would not change to pacifism until our oszillating wars with Gandhi are over, we have 2 more cycles, 1 to grab the next techs and 1 for razing his last city. If you run the numbers this means 10 (peace) + 5 (war) + 10 (peace) + 5 (war) = approx. 30 turns from now.
After this approx. 30 turns we could switch to caste, pacifism during a GA.
I'm not so sure about vassalage/pacifism combo, what about upkeep and maintenance. Right now even 10gpt would hurt us as we are in (military) expansion mode.

Military: We need a few (2,3) replacement cats. A second galley wouldn't hurt but 4 is way too high, he has only archers.

Spy:
Revolts from a spy last 1 turn (at least from my observation), so you have to do this on the turn you are attacking. Probabilities were 75-80% for success, I built one more spy to be save, we have 3 at the moment.
Bombarding the city with cats is slower, each does 8% damage to defense.
(3 are enough for 20% but for a 60%-capital you would need 2 turns even with 4 cats)

Great General:
I heard about the mil.ac. bug. so instructor it is.
We also need a GG to build a level-6 unit for West Point.

EDIT: I checked, forgot about the 10 free units.
This would mean we could switch to caste/pacifism/vassalage during a GA, but we need Feudalism first.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

237: I take Dheli and agree on a peace treaty gifting us Polytheism and Aesthetics, Archery as bonus was too much for him. Dheli is 5 turns in anarchy, I set it to build a Hammam. Unfortunately Ghandi doesn´t want open borders and for some odd reasons he considers us his „worst enemy“ I MM the cities out of revolt and hit enter

238: I agree on an open border agreement (I know...1 turn longer of peace, but we couldn´t examine his lands otherwise as easily).
239: Ankara, now converted, starts a taoist monastery (science + can build missionaries). I keep the scientist at the moment; we have to discuss if lightbulping compass or a GA is more beneficial than an academy at the moment.
...
255: As there was mostly building, I will post a summary: The invasion is prepared. Our cap built a galley and a lighthouse, finishes courthouse (so we can start a FP sooner). Ankara built 2 missionaries for our cap and Konya, a third is finished soon for Bursa (monasteries). Konya buildt a market, a lighthouse is on its way, a monastery should follow. Edrine builds a forge. Bursa is in need of a granary. Ghandi wanted to treat Calendar and 100 gold for currency in between, but I refused (more peace...).
Compass is here, a beeline for optics with engineering is set at the moment but up for discussion. Obvious alternatives are Feudalism adn Civil Service. One scientist is waiting to delive us either a GA or to build an academy. Financial situation: 4 in stock; 50% -9 / 40% +5

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/49010/MrB4_255.CivBeyondSwordSave

Our invasion force: 2 Galleys with:Cat, 2x Swords, Chariot. And a second stack with cat, chariot, 2x sword, 2x Phants on his island. Plan: take his current capital (currently at 20% and protected with 2 archers, settler and a galley) and get Calendar and then Monotheism and/or Archery and gold. After 10 turns take his last city, release both as colony (there might be place for two more cities on this continent). Important: I am not sure if we need Feudalism for this option!!! I don´t think you have to use the spy, use him fo recon/exploration.

 

[Belisar]

Nice build up. Now it's on batter to do some "additional research"
I'm glad I didn't promote the 2nd phant, shock is not necessary right now.
We should discuss the timing of the GA as we would like Feudalism if we want to change all 3 civics.

 

[batteryacid]

I will look at the save tomorrow
So for scheduel; we are taking both cities? or would it take too long?
Please make some tips about civics and specialists, as I have played some games BTS now and have noticed that I am rather unaware/lazy? about the fine mechanics. We only want to have 1 city farming GP, am I right so no 1 priest in this city and 4 scientists in another, or am I mixing something up?
I know we need a great prophet for our holy city(as lateron Coorp headquaters), which will be built in city with biggest commerce and future wall street city.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Several things about specialists: We need the prophet next, which is still around 35 turns or so. We should switch to CS afterwards as 4 scientists in Bursa would further delay this one. In the meantime Dheli should grow as secondary GP farm, build a market next for a merchant. I say we delay further GP until the prophet is here, then we burn the scientist. It should be possible that we research engineering, optics and then feudalism before the prophet is here, then make a triple switch as discussed, our GP farm should crank out great scientists with ease. Civil service would come afterwards (maybe we can trade for it by then, for feudalism or even for optics if we have the travel around the world in our pocket).
In the meanwhile work as many cottages as possible and maybe run single merchants if it pays off (our cap runs one). Important is that our GP farm or Dheli do not overtake the city aiming for the prophet!!!
My thought was to attack his cap, make peace again for tech + gold, then wipe him out 10 turns later and release the cities on this landmass as colony. This vassal will probably settle the landmass (we can even gift him settlers!!)

Edit: thought (needs some number crunching)->What if the second landmass holds 4-5 cities (decent ones, of course...). Would the forbidden palace there eliminate the on-another-landmass extra uptake and we could absorb it completely into our empire without going bancrupt?

 

[Belisar]

MrB covered pretty everything.
His bold sentence is most important, look at the GPPs already generated in the cities and try to finetune it so we get the prophet before the next scientist, remember that after each GP the number raises +100 (< 1000)
The slow prophet is currently our limiting factor, we should have set the priest immediately after the first temple was built but I posted this too late.
After the prophet, we make our civic switch during GA and max Bursa (scientists) and Delhi (merchants)
Should be about equal to gain both, if one produces about 50% more GPP than the other, most of the second's cities GPP will be wasted (will not catch up fast enough)
I will dig out the coresponding strategy article.

The landmass south looks more like a island, an FP there seems like a waste.
IMO way better to build the FP on the east coast of our landmass where all our new cities are located.

About the next Gandhi campaign: Take all except 1 cities (preferable leave the smallest).
Try to do this as fast as possible and sign peace for his gold/tech.
If we can establish a colony this would probably be best.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Some minor adjustments after I slept over it:
Konya should build a Taoist temple next after the lighthouse to run a second priest and afterwards a monastery.

We should explore the island first; I did not hit the southern border yet, so it might be bigger than it looks like. Maybe there are lux resources waiting in decent city spots (unlike our furs ans silver...). Instead of taking th least city we could vassalise Ghandi? Or is it better to create our own colony?

@ Batt: you just conquer his current capital and play the peacetime turns, move a stack to attack his last city and place the spy. The we discuss on the next steps.

Mid-term I would like to see stacks of privateers pillaging traderoutes and wreaking havoc on the seas Do their wins count to GG points? Creating GGs in peacetime could then be possible...

 

[Belisar]

A second temple in Konya is a very good call.

About the privateers, I don't know as I usually don't use them, we could try.
I'm biased by old Civ3 when the AI got furious on you (they should not know it was you who sent the privateer but the relations always got worse by using them.

EDIT: I found a post by someone who stated he got several GGs from using privateers.
I will test this.

 

[batteryacid]

Thanks for the briefing. I don´t know if I will play today; I had a bit of a lengthy beerish discussion with Mr_G yesterday about games , football and future etc. , I even could tempt him with Civ4 a bit, but I think nontheless unfruitful as he is a WoW addict as you know. So its only raiding 1-2 cities and further exploring this island of his with the caravel and some GP MM,; sounds like 10 turns or so.

 

[Belisar]

Take your time as I won't be able to get to this tomorrow.
Ah, Mr_G, the old WoW fanatic
This reminds me of his old statement "Wir brauchen mehr Overlords"
Civ4 translation: "We need more commerce"

 

[batteryacid]

A short version of my turns

Preturn: Check cities, everything seems to be OK, declare war and move units in position

259: we conquer his city; Ghandi gives us archery and Monotheism; Calendar and Literature are not for trading. We loose (despite 70% retreat chance and combat odds) one sword and 1 cat against 4 archer and a pikeman.

a lot of mostly building temples and markets and lighthouses and courthouses

status 276 AD:
Prewar for ghandi, stack in position; he has 1 sword, 1 archer and 1 spearman in his city, spy1 is in position spy 2 examining the small continent in the south

Optics in 1
Prophet in 8
MErchant in 17
Scientist in 15
1 scientist waiting for starting teh golden age as proposed
1 settler (was thrown in in IStanbul as the city doesn´t grow with 2 merchants running) and is waiting to found either beaver city, or iron city 2 or "florida" city

all tiles are improved, even some tiles for future cities
3 cities are set to research but only temporarily as we have to decide what to build there next

Heres a picture of continent in the south

here is the save

The continent in the south is still not fully revealed, but its mostly desert with floodplains , no calendar resource or wine can be seen (yet?)

For discussion: will we build all last 3 cities on our continent and even settle the southern island asap? (~4 more city places apart from the 2 Indian ones); my vote will be beaver city -iron city - miami and then consolidate our eco, and then perehaps build the 3 cities on the southern island, but the final decision can wait til ghandi is beaten and all islands are fully discovered

will we farm a second great prophet for our second holy city?

Tech strat: we will need some happy tech in mid future; drama I guess, and we need for some cities civil service; guilds are not yet needed as Caste system will give us free merchants anyway; replacable parts is still too far away to be bothered with now (and we need the whole theology/feudalsim as well as paper/banking branch for it anyway)

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Thanks fro your turns. Now we need to discuss the coming strategy.

Concerning new cities I guess, beavers should come next. Unfortunately there is no really good spot for the beavers, neither is for silver (would need 2 more expansions to be inside oue cultural borders).

The southern island looks nice with really lots of food to run cottages/specialists (5 cities should fit), but of course we would have to move our FP there... I say if there is a lux in the souther tundra we should go for it; otherwise a pet-AI would be sufficient.

A second prophet takes imo too long (if we run 4+ specialists in our farms anyway). We won´t build Taoist monasteries everywhere + there is only one wall street... so I don´t think we should aim for it. Grest Scientists and merchants are way more juicy.
Too bad he didn´t want to give us Literature or Calendar, maybe Belisar can get a capitulation and those techs...
Tech Route: Optics -> Feudalism -> Civil Service ---> Liberalism

So, Belisar: crush Ghandi, see if there is a lux on the island if not -> liberate cities. Build a couple of caravels for exploration and make contact. Trade for: Literature, Feudalism, Civil service if possible. Don´t give away Optics or trade maps before we have circumvented the globe.

I have slots on Wednesday and Friday. Keep up the good work

 

[Belisar]

... one sword and 1 cat against 4 archer and a pikeman.

I hope you mean spear and not pike

guilds are not yet needed

Guilds are very important for us. We will run caste for quite a while and both give bonus hammer for workshop.
With guilds and caste workshops are already effective and some cities like Istanbul Edrine need them.


We have an important meeting tomorrow, maybe I can slot it in at night, if not I will post and swap with MrB.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Hi, Folks. I wanted to announce that today, 14 pm I found a hot partner for a lifetime.
We already had half an hour of action this afternoon where things got really wet and juicy. I might share if you ask me kindly...

Spoiler :

I am now proud owner of a Ford Fiesta Coupé with 55 kw, silver metallic. I had a shotr trial ride in heavy rain, it´s a small, agile car with sporty handling. It´s not what you thought, you pervs!

 

[Belisar]

MrB:

 

[Belisar]

Update

Preturn Analysis:
We are 1st in the 3 most important categories GNP, production and population
We are doing good but still there is some room for improvements (I know I'm a kind of silly perfectionist and just can not
stand non-optimal city configuration, well you have to live with me, so be kind )

.) We never want any kind of automatization. If you scroll back you will find a SG where they had to follow every advice given by the AI
and it was kind of disaster.

I catched this one:

because I always check cities. Several, including the captured ones, had that citizen-auto. turned on.


.) MM:
Samsun is size 6 and doesn't grow while the rice is not worked
Delhi worked a 2.0.1 tile while a 6.0.2 tile wasn't, in several other cities cottages where assigned while hamlets where available.
After all those MM I gain +4gpt and +9 food.
I know this is not huge but it sums up and you also have to account the snowball(growth) effect (3gpt would arleady pay for caste)

.) Builds:
Capital is set to forge to get more production, Edrine to stable as this will be our military city for quite a while, 7XP phants/kni/cur/cav...

.) Future cities:
Beaver Creek must be founded immediately. The city will be able to pay for itself quickly and +2 happy (with markets) is just too important.
Silver city should be founded when we have the forges in place. I would delay iron/stone city as our military needs are currently meet by Edrine.


I played the first turns and here is a summary.
A barb city is spotted in the far north-east, send sword to check this.
Optics comes in and I set to Feudalism as we need it for vassals anyway.
After the current builds, Istanbul and Ankara both start on a caravel to be sent out in opposite direction.
Otherwise just a few infra, I also sent worker and settler to found Beaver Creek.

More to come...