MRG's Random Game of Randomness
- Thread starter MrRandomGuy
- Start date
Handoff notes:
The Military Academy in Ta-Tu finishes the next turn. Short rush a worker, and then purchase an army would be my advice. Then on the next turn get started on a factory and purchase the rest of it when you can there. I may have done too many upgrades.
There's a stack moving towards Adrianople. It has two cavalry in it, so make sure to move them, when you move the stack next turn.
Do we want any factory builds? I don't know when to squeeze them in. Feels a bit early for them with us being at war.
There's a cannon stack here:
I wouldn't bother transporting over those longbows. I don't think I need to explain why.
Portugal has an extra coal within their territorial borders, but it's not hooked.
Tsetserleg might be a better candidate for a factory first than a cannon:
I started to road around the capital. Korea has refining, but doesn't have more gpt at present. That could change if they got stock exchanges up, I suppose.
War happiness might not last, I don't know.
There are some keshiks, and rifles at or near Dalandzadgad. Ship chain them over on the next turn. Protect the hill with horses above New Kazan above all else.
May the gods favor you, and may our enemies have a blast... of rocks or iron balls.
The Military Academy in Ta-Tu finishes the next turn. Short rush a worker, and then purchase an army would be my advice. Then on the next turn get started on a factory and purchase the rest of it when you can there. I may have done too many upgrades.
There's a stack moving towards Adrianople. It has two cavalry in it, so make sure to move them, when you move the stack next turn.
Do we want any factory builds? I don't know when to squeeze them in. Feels a bit early for them with us being at war.
There's a cannon stack here:
I wouldn't bother transporting over those longbows. I don't think I need to explain why.
Portugal has an extra coal within their territorial borders, but it's not hooked.
Tsetserleg might be a better candidate for a factory first than a cannon:
I started to road around the capital. Korea has refining, but doesn't have more gpt at present. That could change if they got stock exchanges up, I suppose.
War happiness might not last, I don't know.
There are some keshiks, and rifles at or near Dalandzadgad. Ship chain them over on the next turn. Protect the hill with horses above New Kazan above all else.
May the gods favor you, and may our enemies have a blast... of rocks or iron balls.
Also, if anyone wonders why Korea has Hovd now, there's a note in # 381 where I think I explained it. I should have realized it before I played, but only discovered it after making the mistake, and I had told MRG I wasn't going to give away two cities. Basically, the extra furs ended up in Portuguese territory, we were only getting it, because we had culture in that city before the Portuguese city did. So, Hovd with the Saltpeter was the only viable option. We got over 3000 gold, dozens of gpt, Steam Power, Industrialization, The Corporation, and Communism, and Korea at war with the Byzantines for that.
I definitely wouldn't use this in a game on my own, feels a bit too cheap and overpowered and not really satisfying at all.
Although if I was playing this on my own I probably would have said "screw this dumb start" and taken the L by now, especially when I kept researching more techs and not finding strategic resources. We have all these mountains and no Iron, Saltpeter, or Coal? There better at least be some Oil in the desert or Uranium in the mountains or something, because if not we inexplicably managed to have absolutely no strategic or luxury resources at all on top of having a bunch of crap land right outside our core.
Agreed on all points, though now I see Spoonwood's posted the rest of the log and apparently giving away NK wasn't an option
I'm a bit skepical of the trade of Steam to Portugal- didn't you say yourself they looked like they wanted to attack New Karakorum? I mean now they take a rep hit for it, but I don't know how much the AI actually cares about those.
I counted 6 sources of Coal in the world, none of which are close to us- Portugal has 2, Spain has 1, there's another in what's currently neutral territory between Portugal, Spain, and Egypt, there's one in Western America near the Byzantine border, and Sumeria has the last one (their start looks really nice right now- I think they had all the strategic resources and a whole island to themselves but shouldn't have had that much problem reaching the mainland to find the other civs!)
It's wild this entire massive peninsula that Korea and us are on somehow just couldn't manage to have any strategic resources besides Saltpeter!
It's wild this entire massive peninsula that Korea and us are on somehow just couldn't manage to have any strategic resources besides Saltpeter!
Their cavalry moved away on a turn or two. I think they are still somewhere else. I think I could have sold Industrialization on my eighth or ninth turn to Spain, but it was less than 15 gpt if I recall correctly.
I agree. This seems a most unusual map.
Though, I like the disconnect-reconnect and have used it even more extensively for HoF games, I do feel it a bit awkward though in that one's empire produces less commerce. It looks weird to have a not fully roaded capital or borders, or harbor city and no harbor. And figuring out the best numbers for deals can take up a bunch of time, though this is much easier to do with the C3X mod. But overall, I think using it makes the game more fun sometimes.
Top priority should be to get coal now. We could rush a settler in New Karakorum, sign RoPs with Portugal and Spain and quickly send it onto that unclaimed coal resource near Diu.
New Karakorum can grow faster, if we use a coastal tile instead of the furs plain... It would reach size 3 in 3 turns, and the settler could then arrive on the coal tile in 12 turns from now. (Perhaps faster, as Portugal already started to build rails in their territory.) Question is, when Diu will get its first culture expansion...
I suggest, as we have only a few Cavs at this point, we don't yet risk them on attacks against Rifles, but wait until we have shipped our first Army over there. Or should we better form a Rifle Army for better protection? But I would say, ordinary Rifles are good enough for that at the moment. Crusaders are their best units, and they don't seem to have that many of them. (Just wasted one by sending it over to us, and probably also already lost a few in their war against America...)
Beware: there is a Privateer about to attack our eastern Galley.
Direction of war: I suggest we should let the Koreans (and Americans) do the fighting against the eastern Byzantine cities and rather concentrate our advance on the line Constantinopel - Varna - Smyrna. By capturing these three cities, we'll get spices and gems! (After a bit of consolidation.)
New Karakorum can grow faster, if we use a coastal tile instead of the furs plain... It would reach size 3 in 3 turns, and the settler could then arrive on the coal tile in 12 turns from now. (Perhaps faster, as Portugal already started to build rails in their territory.) Question is, when Diu will get its first culture expansion...
I suggest, as we have only a few Cavs at this point, we don't yet risk them on attacks against Rifles, but wait until we have shipped our first Army over there. Or should we better form a Rifle Army for better protection? But I would say, ordinary Rifles are good enough for that at the moment. Crusaders are their best units, and they don't seem to have that many of them. (Just wasted one by sending it over to us, and probably also already lost a few in their war against America...)
Beware: there is a Privateer about to attack our eastern Galley.
Direction of war: I suggest we should let the Koreans (and Americans) do the fighting against the eastern Byzantine cities and rather concentrate our advance on the line Constantinopel - Varna - Smyrna. By capturing these three cities, we'll get spices and gems! (After a bit of consolidation.)
Only attacks I had from the Byzantines were the landings. None on those hills where I captured towns. So, I think a cavalry army would be better. Also, a 7/12 cavalry army if outside of a city won't get attacked in my experience. I agree that ordinary rifles are good enough for the moment.
MrRandomGuy
Prince
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- 353
No coal either! Wow. In a normal game I would be protesting about pillaging our capitol because it seems like an overpowered cheat, but this game is far from normal. Our start was so bad that doing this exploit is justifiable.
Preflight
High priority: Getting the coal near Diu. Portugal looks ready for a fight, so perhaps I'll sign Portugal on with attacking Bayz. They would have to cross through Egyptian territory first and the delay would be enough that it won't be an issue of them taking too many Bayz cities. Egypt is furious with us too, so I would strongly suggest getting Egypt in on the action against Bayz at some point before placing the city down. Probably something the next player will do since it's going to take time to get a settler over there.
Secondary priority: Bayzantine war:
Constantinople is size 5 and you went for Adrianople instead? Size 5 city will have less defense. Even if it hits size 6 or above by the time I move all the troops over it's a much better target. Usually a civ will have their capitol or cities with wonders defended the hardest, but with a smaller city the number of units there won't be an issue! Usually when a civ loses their capitol without the ability to retake it they are unable to fully recover from the blow.
War plan:
There's a lone Bayz caravel to the south of the mainland. Was it the one that dropped off the knight? If so there's no need to worry. If not, it could potentially drop a unit near all those undefended cities.
Production wise: Focus on troops. Cavalry, cannons, riffles. First army should be a Cavalry army then we can do a rifle army afterwards. Factories can wait until we secure the coal resource. We don't want to have to deal with pollution without rails.
Preflight
High priority: Getting the coal near Diu. Portugal looks ready for a fight, so perhaps I'll sign Portugal on with attacking Bayz. They would have to cross through Egyptian territory first and the delay would be enough that it won't be an issue of them taking too many Bayz cities. Egypt is furious with us too, so I would strongly suggest getting Egypt in on the action against Bayz at some point before placing the city down. Probably something the next player will do since it's going to take time to get a settler over there.
Secondary priority: Bayzantine war:
Constantinople is size 5 and you went for Adrianople instead? Size 5 city will have less defense. Even if it hits size 6 or above by the time I move all the troops over it's a much better target. Usually a civ will have their capitol or cities with wonders defended the hardest, but with a smaller city the number of units there won't be an issue! Usually when a civ loses their capitol without the ability to retake it they are unable to fully recover from the blow.
War plan:
Spoiler :
There's a lone Bayz caravel to the south of the mainland. Was it the one that dropped off the knight? If so there's no need to worry. If not, it could potentially drop a unit near all those undefended cities.
Production wise: Focus on troops. Cavalry, cannons, riffles. First army should be a Cavalry army then we can do a rifle army afterwards. Factories can wait until we secure the coal resource. We don't want to have to deal with pollution without rails.
Most games of civ III are non-competitive and single player. What the rules should be makes for a subjective matter in the end. The AIs don't have any interests also. So, I don't see how cheating is even possible for many games of civ III.
In competitive civ III the disconnect-reconnect strategy is not necessarily the fastest way to victory. It means you're making less commerce than you could or you're paying more in unit support if one tried Lanzelot's apparent idea of reroading tiles as much as one could. I have a hard time imagining it as so powerful on Regent and below. Probably also counterproductive on Monarch and Emperor, though conditions can vary a lot.
Yes. It was a shorter walk to Adrianople than Constantinople. New Kazan's cultural borders hadn't popped when I first moved the stack into enemy territory. I thought that all capitals get a defense bonus such that they have defense bonuses one level up. A size capital defends like a size 7-12 non-capital city. Though, I can't seem to find anything in the civilopedia saying that right now, so maybe I didn't read that somewhere. Capitals also tend to have significantly more units than other cities. And more culture come to think of it. So, Adrianople perhaps does make for an easier capture.
A size 7 city can have more defense than a size 5 town, yes.
But, a size 5 town with walls defends with a 50% bonus due to the walls, and a size 7 city has a defense bonus of 50% due to the size of the settlement (and such a city can't build walls). So, a size 5 town and a size 7 or size 8 city can have the exact same defensive bonus value. That said, I don't see walls in the screenshot I took of Constantinople earlier, and I don't know if they would be likely to put one in. Though, I do see now that such a city is also across a river, unlike Adrianople.
If you aren't planning on capturing Adrianople first, that plan involves a larger border territory where the Byzantines might bring units to. Also, Korea can capture cities on their border if you go to the west first.
With some cavalry and trebuchets parked outside of a large captured city, retaking it, probably would not pose all that much of an issue. Also, capturing, selling off buildings, and then abandoning the city would give us more gold than just razing. My experience is that there is rarely ever a need to raze and replace, even at Sid level.
No, some other caravel dropped off the knight. That one has been moving up near one of our caravels, the one in Uliastay in the save.
I'm not sure where any units on the Byzantine caravel will land if it has units. But, AI units tend to land near one's capital when it's coastal. Though, Karakorum is kind of inland, so things might be different. At the very least, I'm sure that there were other undefended cities that the southern caravel could have dropped a unit near on previous turns if there's a unit, two, or three in there. And it didn't drop off any units.
Now that our units are already almost at Adrianople, we might as well take it: it is protected only by pikes, and who knows, the capital might already have rifles and we need a bit time to get our first Cav Army there.
Also Adrianople is a big productive city, producing lots of units. Taking it, will make the war easier. But then yes, the lux resources should be the main objectives.
Also Adrianople is a big productive city, producing lots of units. Taking it, will make the war easier. But then yes, the lux resources should be the main objectives.
That's a good point. However, I would make an exception for 1-2 cities who might have "bad magic numbers" and wasting lots of shields. E.g. if a city makes 18 or 19 spt, it needs 5 turns for a Cav, wasting almost one turn of shield production every Cav. (5x19 = 95, while only 80 shields are needed. Similarly for Rifles or Cannons.) So in cities with 5 x 16 = 80 or 4 x 20 = 80 I would produce units for now, and those with 17-19 spt can already start a factory. That'll be better usage of our shields.
(Also consider that the GA will start soon. If the extra GA boost then gets multiplied by a factory, it'll be extremely powerful: with GA + factory, a city might get up to 40spt, or a Cavalry every other turn...!)
Other random thoughts: should we start pre-builds for Theory of Evolution and Hoover Dam now? Possibly with a factory first and then followed by the pre-build? Though at the moment we only have the palace for pre-building. Universal Suffrage might soon be finished by the AI and then our shields are lost... But ToE would be nice to have. That would finally catapult us into the lead.
As a general rule, I do think your claim correct. I'm not so sure that spreading out would have helped much for this game though.
Thanks for stopping by Lee! I read some of your old succession game reports lately. Thanks for organizing all of that and for posting as much as you have over the years!
I'm not sure about that. However, the city with The Military Academy is worth the pollution. And maybe keep workers around there to anticipate pollution. Also, early railing priorities probably best have railroading that city's tiles before anything else, except maybe, making a rail network just to connect cities.
MrRandomGuy
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Good point. Then we should go to Adrianople then to Caesarea and have a smaller stack of siege units protected by a few rifles assault Constantinople. Then from there Smyrna and Varna. Smyrna rush a library so we can snag the gems and still plant the city by the fish to snag spices.
True, a few factories won't cause an obscene amount of pollution and we can keep a few workers on standby just in case.
10 turns max for electricity with a -108 gpt deficit at 2,200 gold we can and should start prebuild for TOE at the very least. Selling electricity will help us research SM faster too, as the AI generally goes for Replaceable Parts next.
Theoretically, the best time to sell Electricity would be when the deal for Korea's extra saltpeter expires, so we don't have to pay gpt for the saltpeter. Resources and luxuries get cheaper and cheaper relatively speaking with more advanced technology often. Though, it's hard to know that for sure without knowing how things go in this game.
MrRandomGuy
Prince
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Turn Log:
Summary/Notes/Stuff:
- Byzantine is broken, but still has a few units left they can attack with. Be cautious with units with no/low defense.
- Spain declared war on us as noted in the turn log. That resulted in a loss of New KK and the loss of the settler heading towards the coal tile. There was only one turn of warning that it was coming, and by then the settler was too deep in Spanish territory to get out.
- The units at Caesarena cannot take the city right away unless you get super lucky with trebs. You will need to be patient and send cannons from Constantinople along with an escort. The Korean rifle and LBM north of Constantinople should move in the IBT and that will allow you to move some cannons over there faster.
- One army inside Varna needs to heal up in the IBT. Then you can send units to assault Smyrna. The Koreans probably have a few cavalry there already, but you have time to send siege units. Korea isn't attacking in an organized way. Also they might be sending units to Spain now too. After Spain declared, I got everyone to sign a MA against her. The resulting chaos will ensure Spain gets broken next.
- KK is set to produce a cavalry next turn, but you might want to think about using it as a prebuild for TOE since it already has a factory. I highly doubt Universal Suffrage will be built within 6 turns (or less if you increase science.)
- Originally I thought the Koreans had so many units that they would end up taking Caesarena, but they were only successful in capturing/destroying below size 6 towns. That's why I didn't go for Caesarena right away. I thought the Koreans would capture cities quickly. However, once I saw that elite rifle protecting the city I knew that the Koreans had no chance of obtaining it with their disorganized attacks. You should be able to take the city within a few turns.
Spoiler :
Summary/Notes/Stuff:
- Byzantine is broken, but still has a few units left they can attack with. Be cautious with units with no/low defense.
- Spain declared war on us as noted in the turn log. That resulted in a loss of New KK and the loss of the settler heading towards the coal tile. There was only one turn of warning that it was coming, and by then the settler was too deep in Spanish territory to get out.
- The units at Caesarena cannot take the city right away unless you get super lucky with trebs. You will need to be patient and send cannons from Constantinople along with an escort. The Korean rifle and LBM north of Constantinople should move in the IBT and that will allow you to move some cannons over there faster.
- One army inside Varna needs to heal up in the IBT. Then you can send units to assault Smyrna. The Koreans probably have a few cavalry there already, but you have time to send siege units. Korea isn't attacking in an organized way. Also they might be sending units to Spain now too. After Spain declared, I got everyone to sign a MA against her. The resulting chaos will ensure Spain gets broken next.
- KK is set to produce a cavalry next turn, but you might want to think about using it as a prebuild for TOE since it already has a factory. I highly doubt Universal Suffrage will be built within 6 turns (or less if you increase science.)
- Originally I thought the Koreans had so many units that they would end up taking Caesarena, but they were only successful in capturing/destroying below size 6 towns. That's why I didn't go for Caesarena right away. I thought the Koreans would capture cities quickly. However, once I saw that elite rifle protecting the city I knew that the Koreans had no chance of obtaining it with their disorganized attacks. You should be able to take the city within a few turns.
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The AIs prioritize going after your capital if it's empty and close to the coast. The landing spot near Tabriz is one of the closest spots to the capital.
I always play with friend moves off. I can still see nearby battles with 'animate battles' on.
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