MrB4...Beyond the PC Problems

[Belisar]

The overall picture is looking good, we have nearly double the population and GNP of the best AI.

MM:
I love the way Ankara and Konya are developed with all those towns, we need more.
The furs town needs a workboat imediately for the fish, I suggest one in Bombay.
Bursa has a grassland river that isn't improved.
2 workers need to be sent south with the galley.
I suggest building the iron-stone city next to get the stone for Oxford in Bursa ASAP, then our blue dot on the island
with all those floodplain cottages.


Tech:
We still need banking, eco and gunpowder before we research chemistry so I would delay the machinery trade as long as possible.
An important tech will be cooperations with +1 trade route and lets not forget Rep. Parts with the needed lumber mills on our conserved forests.


Foreign:
Currently, Open Borders with Izzy are available, I see no reason not to sign for the trade routes.
Please check from time to time with the rest, we still need them with S-man I think (Ramses probably will not sign at all)

Mid term chemistry and the navy should be our route, long term we could improve our tech lead and prepare the invasion.
Converting cities on the S-man continent to Conf. sounds like a good idea if we have enough hammers for the missionaries, even S-man doesn't change his state religion we still get the gold.

 

[batteryacid]

So, here a small discussion of my turns.

I precheck the cities and according to our strategy trade open borders with izzy for the trade routes and check cities for building the settlers for Iron city and blue dot island city. IUstanbul (with 3 turns / settler ) is tewh best choice,
I change bombay to build first workboat and then galleon in case s-man gives us open borders, unfortunately all our cites are too occupied ti build missionaries at the moment
340: Banking arrives, I set for Economy according to our discussion and switch to free market (1 turn)
After economics I set to corporations
We get the great merchant which is prepared for shipping to MAdrid
All our core cities are now set to grocer/bank/custom office
Intermediate: We found Iron and blue dot city (my bad I did a lib chop there because no city was able to throw in a missionary); 2 spies are shipped to explore foreign land
Bursa is switched to Oxford but needs the hooked up stone badly
We are currently running 4 scienctists in Bursa (10 turns) and 2 merchants in Dheli (can rise to 4) which is due in 30 (but can speeded up to 15)
348: I get open borders with S-Man
354: great merchant brings us 3100 coins
355: we research corporations; as we have not decided yet to trade for engeneering or not I decide to end my turns here
Taj Mahal is in 6

heres the save

Important things:
we need missionaries - currently only Konya is building one, but other 1-2 cities should join so that we can really convert S- man to a degree that pais off.
Engeneering/chemistry is next, so Bombay and istanbul should switch to privateers
Religion has to spread to our new 2 cities
Stone is to be connected
S-Man, brennus and Hammurabi would give us engeneering for 1600 $ (which would be 16 Turns 100% instead of 60% research and I think not worth it in the long term)
Noone has Gun Powder or Nationalism ,which is a good sign for getting the Taj Mahal and for having the tech lead
We are mainly down on theology/music/literature and engeneering; Ai is down Powder/nationalism/astronomy/paper/education/Printing Press/ liberalism in varyying degree

 

[Agrippa]

Hi guys, nice game until now.
Will watch closely

 

[batteryacid]

Is it you, Mannstein?

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Welcome to the forums, Agrippa.

I hope you are as pasionate as us on playing cIV. If you have useful advice, just post it or maybe you are more comfortable at the moment with just lurking.

I AM EAGERY WAITING WITH BIIIIG PATIENCE FOR GENERAL BELISARIUS PROGRESS REPORT. I AM REEEAAALLLYYY CALM (for now).

 

[Belisar]

And you shall not be disappointed.
Ready to be back in the saddle again? Hope to get it done late tonight.

 

[Belisar]

I finished late night but no time for the report, here we go, lots of stuff.

Preturn:
Some MM:I fire the Eng. in Delhi and Konya to keep both growing at a good pace.
A lib in the new iron city? The city is all about production, so change that.
Send a worker back to help with the improvement of the new iron city.

Now the trades: I get bananas from S-man for clam (bananas are the only health-ressource that is doubled with grocer)
This means an extra scientist in Bursa, together with the grwoth next turn we are at 6 already.
I trade Paper and Compass to Gilgamesh for Machinery. Izzy already has compass and everyone on the other continent has paper
so we should take advantage on it. I then sell paper to Izzy also for Lit. (we need music for cav) and all her gold.
The Izzy-Gilg continent is still backwards (education, optics) compared to our bud-friends.
-> Chemistry comes in in 5 turns, nicely timed with the Taj Mahal which comes in 6.

S-man wants us to adopt Organized Religion, No.
Izzy wants to sell us Theology for Philo, no deal.
I fit in a quick workboat in Istanbul (1 turn) for the fish at the marble town.

Start banks in Konya and Instanbul.
Brennus adopts Free Market, this guy is amazing, he must have researched eco himself,
an ultra small empire but he is 2nd in tech behind us. Ramses with 4-times his cities hasn't even education
and S-man could discover Eco but has not yet.

S-man has discovered Nationalism, we must get to cavs after Chemistry.

We get Chemistry and I take Music in 1 turn (at 70%)
We are now researching Mil, we must build up our army.

On my last turn we got the Taj and our 3rd GA started, we make 4-turn research at 70% with only a little deficit
(we can support this for more than 100 turns)
I started the first privateer (even Konya can build one in 5 turns during GA)
Istanbul, Bombay and even Delhi should start them when their current builds are finished (remember, privateers have only a small
life until the AI gets frigates)

The bad news from this last turn: Ramses (worst enemy) researched Astronomy. He will likely go for us so we must go military
now (I already started in Edrine, after the knights it's curs and then cav)
I already sent a spy at his iron-source. Rearange the troops as well, the phants need to be on the east-coast and we need a lot
of ships to hunt down his.

Have fun with the GA and get out our fleet, Admiral MrB

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/30880/MrB_361.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[batteryacid]

Nice turns

Yes, I always hasd teh feeling that Ramses will be our greatest problem (mid-term, long term it will be S-man, when he finally gets his empire to be more effective), but, as fortune wants, Ramses is only a stone´s throw away from us, and with the first empire to exploit privateers this situation should be manageable

I told you I was with the 2 new cities in Civ3 mode and thought we need a libchop for border expansion (forgot that religions produce now culture, too )

We have the Taj-Mahal finally we get a WW (Ramses had far too much, so we must press on tech pace that all his WW will get useless

and , all I have to say for now is: We need more overlords! (äääh cavs, I mean )

Other question: can we handle the Apostolic Palace til our invasion (and ruined Ramses with our Privateers?)

Edit: are civic switches to make during GA? I somehow lost the overview of our settings, but I think we don´t need one (except perehaps 1 or 2 switches to get more experienced privateers and Knights/cavs)

 

[Belisar]

As far as civic switch during GA is concerned, I think our priveteers should do fine without many promotions as they will only fight galleys, caravelles and galeons. Just remember we need one medic-privateer per stack.
By the time the AI gets a lot of frigates this age will be over anyway.

The way to get culture in a new city is normally by religion but in the case of the iron city (where we needed the stone immediately within range) I just assigned an additional artist for 2 turns which is an easy solution if you are running caste system.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Thanks for your turns, Belisar! I will have time to play either tomorrow during the day or Saturday; I am however limited as I have to use my father´s PC. Sunday evening I am in Vienna again and I could playdefinitely then.

So we will be pirate lords for a while. Pillage Ramses traderoutes and annoy the hell out of him, I say. Numbers we want: around 15 I will aim for. most of them should pillage, 1 stack (3-4 ships including 1 healer) West, North, and East of his land should wait to intercept his ships + replace damaged/killed ones.

National Epic/ Heroic Epic cities? Bursa or Dheli for HE, Bombay or Edrine for NE? A fast building harbour city might prove useful now; Edrine could get IW later...

Cavs ye want, cavs ye shalt receive...

 

[Belisar]

I tought about the national wonders also:

Military:
The problem with Bombay is it has already the Maoi so we couldn't build West Point (these reminds me to keep the next GG for a level-6 unit!)
Why not build it in Istanbul, the city is our most versatile one and could produce land and sea units with West Point and Epic. (We need a lot of land units anyway)

I agree on Iron Works in Edrine, this way the city can build wonders and units with all the GGs.

Great People:
I would say we place the other epic in Delhi as Bursa has more long-term potential itself and we want both scientists and merchants.
(Bursa Oxford and Delhi Wall Street)

A side note: When we start producing cavs we need Rep. Parts next for all those lumber mills

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Preturn: cities look fine at the moment, soon I can switch to pump out privateers
I don´t mention city buldups in detail, only milestones. Privateers as well as Cur were pumped when possible.

362: Bombay starts privateers after custom house. I build an academy with the GS in Konya

364: Istanbul: Bank-National epic
365: Military science –Replacable parts; Ramses has contact and is at –4 with Izzy and –2 with G-man
369: Istanbul builds privateers at 1-2 turns now that NE is finished. Replacable parts is here and I start Rifling now.

374: Rifling is here as well as a GM in Dheli and I stop for discussion.

Tech: No trades possible as we are too advanced! Noone has gunpowder, PP or Liberalsim yet, other techs are lacking to a varying degree. Research: towards RR (steam power would mean faster lumbermills) or military science (not neccessary as no frigates are around and then we can build ironclads for protection), imo.
Pillaging nets us $25 per turn now. Brennus already has a galleon . Important is to build up a stack in Brennus´ sea to pillage his cities and at the same time to block the passage from Ramses other cities. I say we stack a couple of Frigates to intercept G-man who also can build galleons in the west and concentrate privateers to Ramses, Brennus (little capacity to build a big navy) and maybe S-man (more losses, imo as he will build more ships).
Infrastructure: Oxford comes next round (then bank or workers should follow). Dheli builds a bank, 2 more banks are needed for wall street after that which are set next in Samsun and Vij... – we could fasten up the 6 banks required by switching to banks in Bombay or our Mil. City, which can be discussed. The GM is to be shipped by the next person for a mission, imo, I say we take the cash (upgrading to Cavs/Rifles...).
I shipped 2 workers back to istanbul (2 arrive next turn) to build the juicy lumbermills. We should build more workers, imo, mainly because Railroadsa might just be 20 turns away...
I did not build missionaries as we don´t have an open order agreement with S-man any more and converting G-man would be too tedious to pay off, imo.

And now the all important strategy: converting S-man failed as we don´t have open borders. We have a techlead, but not yet decicive. With privateers we should aim for the next GG, maybe we declare sometime on Ramses and Brennus to raze the AP city and make them vassals. I guess we play defensively with the western continent/ try to make tham allies so they don´t invade. With naval protection in the west and rails/ mobile stacks we don´t have to fear much from them.

Anyways, here is the save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/49010/MrB4_374.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Belisar]

Sounds good, if we cann't trade cause we have the tech lead there is nothing to argue with that

Did relations with S-man go down again?
Last time it was -1 and he gave us bananas for clam which is very profitable for us. All this annoying aksing for civiv/religion switches...
Will look at the save and perhaps post additional comments late tonight.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Yup, he wanted something like gunpowder as a gift which I refused. If I remember we are -2 or -3 now. I say we keep Gilgamesh as buddy so we don´t have to fear invasion from him and Izzy is a kind of neutral and has a looong way to go to us so no danger there. We build up for an invasion east and with a bit of luck the two other continents are at each other´s throats (I hope Izzy keeps up to be annoying ) before we invade. Maybe we gift Izzy a tech to join our crusade agains the infidels

Anyways: I say we try vassalising the eastern continent and, if we succeed, we turn west. Spaceship is an option anyways if conquering is too tedious.

 

[Belisar]

I had a look at the save and have only some MM for Vize-Admiral Shukov (aehm... batter )

Samsun needs a lighthouse badly, the furs town should work the mine instead of a sea tile which
nearly doubles it's production.
We should renew the banana for clam deal with S-man (he is only at something like 0 or -1, helps Bursa a lot) and Open borders with both
him and Brennus.
There is a privateer sleeping in Ankara.

Strategy: I would concentrate all our (piracy, spy) efforts on the Bud continent as the other one is still
backwards. Additionally, if Brennus or Ramses get frigates we can then go after G-man.
Lets build up the army (MrBs suggestion of ~15 privateers sound good, then we need cav and rifles)
We should also disband the old warriors (I think we have 6) during the process of building new land units
as they are far to expensive for an upgrade and we don't need MPs.
A few ships-of-the-line (Mil science) would be good for defense (forget about the lame iron-cl.)

Tech: Steam (which is on the way to factories and infantry) is a nice tech but don't forget democracy.
We have copper but SoL still takes time to build (a free specialist in Rep, jamm)

Good luck batter

 

[Mr. Blonde]

IMPORANT INFORMATION FOR ALL PLAYERS:

PATCH 3.13 IS OUT AND SAVES ARE PROBABLY NOT COMPATIBLE WITH 3.02 and 3.03!
We might want to finish our game soon to try out new balancing and features (blitz ships! corporation costs without inflation!). Man, we would have liked those features for our current SG

 

[Belisar]

Yea, too bad saves are not compatible
Inflation is currently more of a problem than the AI

 

[Mr. Blonde]

I checked again and some people state that they are, others that they are not. Do you have 2 hours spare to check, Belisar? Me and batt are down until tomorrow. The changes are too juicy in our situation to not try if it works, imo.
Screenies show that 3.13 uses save version 301, maybe that helps.

 

[Belisar]

I can check tomorrow, early (when "normal" people still sleep )
Would be great.

 

[Belisar]

I can load my old saves after the patch, I will do some late-game tests with an old solo-game to test gameplay as well.