NCSG IV Redux - The Mummy Strikes Back

[grandad1982]

I'd prefer a. Settler him.

Why not stick him in Helio(? (stone city future Maori)) or Alex?

 

[S.ilver]

Doubling up in Thebes is thinking long term wise (7XP, waiting on WP to get us coveted 11XP units coming out at level 4). By then, we are very likely to have acquired another GG. 7XP units by themselves are not as valuable as nearly twice as many 5XP units, which would be the affect if we settled somewhere like Heliopolis, which is likely to be a major hammer producer once Moai is finished.

Don't get me wrong; I'd love to double up generals in Thebes. But that is to take advantage of stacking WP on top of it, so it can wait until we're closer to Military Tradition.

I'm not really a fan of sticking generals onto units other than medics, because units tend to die in the blaze of glory. Victories aren't guaranteed, so there is always a chance to lose a unit, and if we've made the unit particularly valuable by sticking a GG on him, I'd rather not use him.

 

[grandad1982]

Yer GG Super Units tend to become stack deffenders by nature of there Superness. This means I get nerveous of them and they are wasted by being retired from the field or only used to mop up. Still can be fun occationally!

 

[Groogaroo]

Yer GG Super Units tend to become stack deffenders by nature of there Superness. This means I get nerveous of them and they are wasted by being retired from the field or only used to mop up. Still can be fun occationally!

Hmmm... Maybe I should have read that before I played my set

Anyway... Finally I get to play a my second set! Objectives? Take Guimaraes and march on to Lisbon.


Inherited turn (200)

Not much to do, I like the "settle the GG at Helio" idea so move our Great General over there.

We have a fairly decent stack near guimaraes but I'm going to wait for a couple more troops, 50% defense plus its on a hill! We have a wounded mini stack 1 SW, I move them into to the main stack so they can benefit from the super medic's super healing powers.


Turn 1 (201)

Latest news is in, no surprises... we are the most powerful!

Ainu, finishes Granary > Starts Courthouse

GG settled @ Helio

Turn 2 (202)

Move our stack into position

Turn 3 (203)

Thebes, Cat > Cat

Hmmm... meanwhile back at guimaraes I give the cats a round of bombardment on the city, defenses down to 38%, okay thats not very effective! c'mon it has been over a week since I last played!


Turn 4 (204)

1 more bombard and the other 2 cats suicide
C3 WarChariot defeats archer @69% odds
CR1 Sword suicides to an axe @32% odds

okay this next bit your going to hate me for!

our Super medic Warchariot defeats a sword @83%
C1 sword suicides to an axe @ 34% odds
C2 shock Axe defeats axe @ 99% odds
C1 shock Axe defeats axe @ 99% odds

and...

Guimaraes is ours, I start on a library.


Turn 5 (205)

Helio, Moai Statues > Cat

Stack moves into Guimaraes to heal up and reinforcements also arrive.


Turn 6 (206)

Alexandria, Axe > Warchariot


Turn 7 (207)

Alexandria Warchariot > Archer


Turn 8 (208)

Mansu asks us to convert to Islam... No chance.

Thebes, Cat > Archer

Back at Guimaraes... With our stack healed I leave a spear & axe to garrison the city and move all the other troops toward the capital of portugal.

Turn 9 (209)

Alexandria, Archer > Axe

The stack moves onto Joao's Copper mine to pillage next turn and we get a look at the troops inside the capital.

Notice how Joao's kindly moved his Horsearchers out into the open for us to pick off.


Turn 10 (210)

Thebes, Archer > Forge

Joao horse archers move towards our territory and promptly get picked off by a spear & a warchariot, pillaged the copper & moved the stack into the forrested hill next to Lisbon.

This is were I end my set.


Summary

So weve got our dotted gem city, Guimaraes, It was actually quite tough to take and I suicided a few troops to get it, hence the reason I've been primarily building units this set. Apologies for using the Super medic to attack, that was just reckless really.

We have a good sized stack at Lisbon, which has more troops than Gui had but is not on a hill. There are more troops moving towards Gui... archers to relieve the Axe & Spear garrisoning the city... and a warchariot, axe and cat on the way too, so its up to you whether you think the city is takeable or if you want to wait for reinforcements.

I didn't start HE during this set as I think that still needs to be discussed where were putting it. Personally I'd rather put ironworks in the capital and maybe put HE in Helio, which by the way needs a lighthouse to take advantage of the Moai Statues weve just built there!

We have a great person due next turn from thebes, most probably a scientist.

I feel I havn't played this set to best of my ability, I can't believe a week off from playing civ and I feel I need to drop a couple of levels!

Anyway over to the next player...


Roster

GatlingGun
Bleys
S.ilver
Groogaroo - Just Played
grandad1982 - Up Now
Jkaen - On Deck


& Save

 

[grandad1982]

OK got it. Will try to press the capital but might just pillage and take peace till we're ready to finish this war. Will just have to see.

I'm say HE in Thebes. Should we vote?

 

[S.ilver]

Pretty good turns considering you think you're rusty Groo . I actually read the thread 2 minutes after you posted it and saw the spam of "We are most powerful!" pictures .

Some minor criticisms though...

Helio should've gone for a lighthouse immediately after it finished Moai, because it is stuck at a perpetual 4 population without one. Once that is up, it'll be able to crank out units for us.

You've got a chariot, and a wounded spear sitting on separate tiles unsupported. The chariot looks like it is coming up from Gem-city as reinforcements. These units are likely dead, because Joao has lots of horse archers around to punk them off. We can cover the chariot with a spear from Gem-city (I'll never bother to remember the actual name ), but the wounded spear, which happens to be one of our better promoted units, is likely dead as we can't get support to it. In the process, we also left our main stack with no spear protection, so Joao could throw horse archers at it and kill the catapults if he wanted to. The moral of the story is to not send out units individually. That's why I had the units grouped in twos and threes, spread out in our territory, so they could respond to Joao's attacks and still be safe.

An alternative solution would be promoting the Chariot and leaving it alone where it is, hoping it acts as bait so they don't kill our senior spear.

We need roads up to Gem-city bad. Meanwhile 4 out of 5 of our workers are at Ainu, building silk plantations. Granted, I am partially to blame for that as I had a worker heading south, but as soon as things were clear at Gem-city, we should've sent the workers in, as without roads, it slows our reinforcements.

You don't appear to have used the whip at all in your turnset. Memphis Courthouse, Pi-Ram Granary, and even MoM (although I am uncertain of the value of whipping wonders). Bleys is our resident whipping expert, so I'll wait for his advice on this.

EDIT: HE in Thebes is fine. Let's take Joao's capital and get back into development mode. We need more workers !

 

[Groogaroo]

Some minor criticisms though...

I knew that was coming

Hmmm... yeah I really should have used the whip, I think I'm guilty of getting over excited at hitting in to Joao and forgeting to actually play the game... Hence the moves with not having any workers developing our new territory and our rather stranded troops here and there away from the main stack.

With Helio though you could say that the lighthouse should have been built before Moai! In my defense I had just suicided 2 cats & 2 swords and made the judgement call to just get a unit out before a lighthouse as it is our closest production city to the front line.

MoM? Well I was struggling to find a good way to get whip overflow in there in a decent amount of time, I always struggle with the whip when production is quite low, guess I should have just queued up a cheap unit to whip. I would never directly whip a wonder unless it was an absolute emergency.

 

[S.ilver]

With Helio though you could say that the lighthouse should have been built before Moai! In my defense I had just suicided 2 cats & 2 swords and made the judgement call to just get a unit out before a lighthouse as it is our closest production city to the front line.

That's true. It may have been a blunder on my part as well, but I view it as a partial judgment call. A lighthouse would've given us 1 extra food to slowly grow (from the seafood). Moai gives us an extra hammer on the seafood, and gives the lake a hammer as well, so it can be worked as a food neutral tile, which will help growth, as we are running food-negative squares around there.

 

[Jkaen]

I think its decedied that Thebes is becoming a unit pump city, hence I agree with HE there

 

[grandad1982]

PFT
Not much to say. World was left in a nice condition!

Notice a this. It moved east during my set but disapeared.

I make a trade for Ivory.

I didn't notice the stone till my last turn! Must have mis clicked. Stupid boy.


1

IBT we lose a chariot.

AP rears its head. Built by Mansa so its the otherside of the World.

I withdraw our spear towards our lands and away from Joao's cavalry stack.

Bombard Lisborn. This does on for many turns till i get enouth troops on the ground.

GSci in Thebes. I leave him as we never discussed what to do.

Helio, Cat> Lighthouse


2

Freds the daddy!

3

Bombard....


4

Thebes, Forge> Spear

Alex, Axe> Axe


5

Fred wasnts us to convert to Islam. I say no.

IBT Fred sucided some troops.

Ainu, Court> Forge


6

Machienary> Civil Service. Might as well be getting ready for a Medival War.

Eleph, MoM> Market

Thebes, Sprear> HE

Pi> Gran> Monastary (needs culture badly to claim its full BFC)


7

Mansa comes by with a trade. Mach and 145 gold for Fued. I say no for now.

With very bad tactical guile it start the attack on Lisborn. we have less troops than him but our cats wreck them up reducing the IBT threat.
Lose a sword.

Helio, Lighthouse> Forge


8

Lisborn falls!

Wheres the buildings??!!! Still a settled GG.


9

Alex, Axe> Axe

Giza, Granary> Monastary (culture issues again)


10

I notice the smoke with Asokas deal and cancal it. He wants silk and gems for Ivory. No.

Some possible trades.

As well as the Fued deal.

Peace for...

The city he offers is rubbish (see the right of the screen).

Fred has a Vassel

Glance

Tech

Demo

Stratigic resoreses of Joaos

So what to do with the GSci? Bulb Philo. Settle. Acadamy. GA.

I say Philo.


I suggest we get some markets up soon.


Roster

GatlingGun - on deck
Bleys
S.ilver
Groogaroo
grandad1982
Jkaen - up now

The save

 

[S.ilver]

End the war. We got what we came for (Lisbon). Please see if Joao will give us HBR instead of his junk city that has zero food.

Not sure about the GS... Phil is great to leverage on Mansa to gain some techs, but I'm not sure we need it. Mansa will give us Civil + Cash for Machinery, so I'd take it. Hopefully the AIs other than Mansa will be willing to trade Feud soon too, and we won't need to burn the GS on Phil. It would be nice to Vassal Joao, as he doesn't seem to have too much more good territory for us to take. Settling him in Memphis, which I assume we will be setting up a science city, or building an academy there would be better long-term wise.

I must be turning into Bleys, because I absolutely cringed when I saw the courthouse still building in Memphis when we have 8 population. I checked, and we could've whipped it 10 turns ago and been doing something else there.

I disagree with Markets first. We need courthouses first. Markets only work if we are actually pulling in commerce in a location. Courthouses work regardless, and we are suffering bad from maintenance. Keep in mind that maintenance is also contributes to inflation costs. So that's bad and needs to be cut ASAP (whipped likely).

We need to start designating city specialties around now, as our economy is going to be close to collapse when Lisbon comes out of revolt. Ainu, in my opinion, should not be getting a cottage. Actually, if I had my way, Ainu, would not be getting any roads. We have 10 forests in that fat cross, and the city cannot grow much because it has minimal food for its terrain. I would keep it small by running on the high yield tiles + the forested hill, and run the place over with lumbermills when the time comes (if we get that far). If the game drags on, not that I expect it to on Pangaea, we could go with NP here as well.

Elephantine, IMO, is where more cottages are needed, as there is lots of flatland and fresh water to support a few farms to bulk up on population. Get out the essentials there and let the city grow some cottages.

BTW, I don't recall when we switched to OR, but I just realize that it may have been to be running it this entire time, while we were mostly building units. We were paying high upkeep for basically no reason .

Also, why did we get Ivory from Asoka? We had no HBR for war elephants, we didn't really have a happiness problem, and we didn't build SoZ while we had it... Speaking of which, we may want to immediately get Ivory back, so we can push out that stupid wonder in Thebes. Another reason to trade for Civil and get Bureau up and running to minimize the time it hogs in our capital.

 

[Bleys]

That's true. It may have been a blunder on my part as well, but I view it as a partial judgment call. A lighthouse would've given us 1 extra food to slowly grow (from the seafood). Moai gives us an extra hammer on the seafood, and gives the lake a hammer as well, so it can be worked as a food neutral tile, which will help growth, as we are running food-negative squares around there.

Lighthouse also gives us an extra food in that lake tile. One of my FAVORITE places to build Moai is a coastal city with a few lake tiles in it. Monster tiles early in the game, 3F, 1H, 2C (3C with a FIN civ).

Sorry I didnt chime in on the "whipping expertise" thing earlier, I only caught that line in your post a bit ago, heh. I am NOT a whip expert, in fact, I think I use it way too much, but here is how I look at it. I find cities that are a few turns away from losing their whip-anger (BUG tells you exactly when it will fade), and stick something whippable in front of it. It builds a couple turns, at which point, I whip it, with the overflow going into the original item. This is an extremely effective way to build big things while still putting out some little things. Its especially useful when you are whipping into something with a nice production bonus, like an IND leader with stone into the Mids, or an EXP leader overflowing into a Granary. If you need to stop growth, stick a worker or settler in front, and try to 2-pop whip. If there is plenty of room under the cap, then single-pop whips are fine.

One of the reasons I like to whip a lot early is that it takes much less food to grow from 3 to 4 than from 9 to 10. Also, its likely in the early game that many cities just wont have a ton of improved tiles to work, so whipping those citizens that are just working a plains forest can provide a TON of hammers.

Whipping (and chopping, for that matter) is best if you can maximize those hammers. I almost always whip into double-buildings, regardless of city size. Even PHI leaders whipping into Universities is huge.

BTW, great game guys, we are doing very well here. I like this group, all good, solid, Monarch+ level players. Outstanding turns. Sorry about my building the MoM instead of the Parth though, totally my bad, I usually only chase a few Wonders these day, GLH, GL, and MoM. I am pretty addicted to Golden Ages, and often have 3 or 4 Great People asleep in my capitol, just waiting to be turned into 15 turn monster GAs at the proper moments. With IND leaders I even use Engineers for GAs.

OK, going to read the end of this thread a bit more thoroughly so I dont blow a bunch of on my set this time, heh.

 

[Jkaen]

I like this group, all good, solid, Monarch+ level players.

Enter me !

As for the GS I am a big fan of academies, I can't open the save up here at work, but does everybody agree on Memphis for the science city?

 

[Jkaen]

Ok, game plan for this turnset:

Peace Joao, hopefully for HBR
Disperse troops to position for quicker reaction against next threat
Ensure all our cities have religion
Focus on bringing infrastruture up quickly (mainly courthouses)
Build academy in Memphis
Diplo wise keep buddy with Asoka, let everybody else go hang in needs be
Tech wise head to (or trade for) machinery than on to Engineering?

Everybody agree with that?

 

[S.ilver]

Ok, game plan for this turnset:

Peace Joao, hopefully for HBR
Disperse troops to position for quicker reaction against next threat
Ensure all our cities have religion
Focus on bringing infrastruture up quickly (mainly courthouses)
Build academy in Memphis

I agree with all this.

Diplo wise keep buddy with Asoka, let everybody else go hang in needs be
Tech wise head to (or trade for) machinery than on to Engineering?

This, I am not so sure about. We don't want to find ourselves losing to the AP, and it's on the other side of the world, so conquering it isn't an option right now. We could aggressively spam Islam around our cities to give ourselves more clout in a vote...

As for tech, we already have machinery. We are teching Civil, but Mansa will give us Civil + gold for machinery. I think we should take it. Mansa himself is not a military threat, he's a threat in other ways, but not militarily. Even though he is Fred's vassal, Fred is still rather backwards, so no major worries that he will dump the techs all over the place.

We should be able to get Feud through a trade soonish, as AIs like that tech. Mansa and Fred both have it already, and if one more civ gets it I think we'll be able to trade for it.

Engineering would be good for logistical reasons. If we get that, be sure to at least put a castle in Thebes ASAP for the trade abuse.

After engineering... do we want to make a Liberalism run?

 

[Bleys]

I think we want to spread the AP religion as much as possible ASAP.

At this point in the game, I generally like to bulb Philo, and run Pacifism with as many Scientists as possible in the GL city, and use the GSs generated to bulb Education. I dont mind building academies, but locking down the Lib race is important. Once we get Education done, we can look at which tech we want from Lib. I like Steel. Nationalism should also be in the cards, so we can build the Taj for a 15 turn Golden Age. Pacifism can also generate more Great People for us to use to trigger GAs, and help with the teching/production of the Rifling-Nationalism path. I think our long-term goal here is Rifles/Cannons vs Longbows, and steamroll a couple AIs.

 

[Jkaen]

Just played turn 0, wanted to hold off for a few comments before I launch in properly.

Buddism is missing from 3 cities, so I should hopefully be able to complete that and may good headway on spreading islam too (missing in 5).

Looks like the GS issue is not decided yet either, do I read right you would use this current one to bulb Bleys?

 

[grandad1982]

I suggested Philo as its on the Lib route. Acadamy works for me too.

 

[Bleys]

I generally bulb if Philo is available, but its usually my 2nd or 3rd GS, since I tend to build the GL a lot and run scientists early.

I dont mind any of the choices here, Academy, Bulb or even settle. All have positives and negatives, so its sort of a matter of personal preference. Philo is on the Lib path though, it makes good trade fodder once Education is secured, and opens Pacifism, which is where I think we want to be very soon. Academies are never bad choices though.

 

[Jkaen]

Ok, have played my turns last night, but ran out of time to write them up (darn aunt thinking I am computer support).

Will try to get it done either this lunchtime or early evening