NCSG1-Suryavarman II!

[grandad1982]

No I'm not a grandfarther! Man that would be scary. grandad was my nick name at uni and at school! Uni as I liked cordroy trousers and school as some people thought my hair looked grey. Its not. The 1982 is my birth year and was forced on my some time ago when hotmail told me grandad already existed.

If your drafting consider the globe in Yaso. The forests to the south can be chopped to speed it up.

Qin is gonna get it! Oh boy is he gonna get it! Also changing to theo from org religion might be a plan.

Looking ahead to the next SG we have a go at how about a hemispheres map with more than 2 coninents? As for leaders how about one of the less common choices again? Justinian I is a leader I hardley touch. Hes IMP/SPI starts with wheel and myst. UB gives an extra with horses. His UU is a pimped knight. Also his flag looks very cool and he wears on of the worst hats in the game.

As I already said in a previous post I'd be willing to give monarch a crack. I'll eat my words soon....

 

[Bleys]

Played my turns, not a whole lot to report. I am sorry that I missed the note about starting Herm in AW, but the next player can. Heres my report:

I started out by upgrading a few CR2 Maces to Rifles, we have plenty of cash. Just a few, I would like to get the rest of the CR2 Maces to CR3, then upgrade them as well. They are monsters taking out cities.

I also moved some troops toward Qin. I do not want to get caught with our pants down.

We finished Constitution, and I started Democracy. SoL plus eventual Oxford will pump our tech lead even farther.

Ragnar asked us to join the war on Suili again, declined, and got a nice event in our former Cap:

I managed to build a few Stables, and have a couple more in-build, so our Knights can come out with a couple Flanking promotions out of the gate. I also spread some religion, and failed one Jewish Mission to the Arctic city (oh, built a Work boat there, its on the fish now).

I delayed Taj with a Harbor and a Lighthouse, it is due the next turn, but some barracks still arent finished. We should decide about civics, goals and such with this GA, I recommend we draft rifles, build cannons and knights, and put Qin out of his misery once and for all. Leave him the island cities like we did JC, not worried about "motherland" unhappiness, we are in great shape there.

Also started the FP in Hari, it has a good location to cut costs, central to a lot of cities.

Other than that, we are jammin. Here is the stack I put near Qin. I may have overdone it, but I see very little threat to the west, we have Rifles in those cities, and I dont think anyone will dare try anything. Qin is the only AI that can still rain on our parade, even if its just a sprinkle. NOTE, there are about 4 more cannons coming to that stack as well. I think we should move on Qin soon:

Other than that, we are in great shape. I already chained the farms we wanted, and built a farm near the "filler city" spot, which we should settle ASAP. We can actually drop in about 4 filler cities in various spots if we wanted too. Wouldnt hurt us a bit. Too late to use em for drafting cities though, so maybe we should just not sweat it, except that one that will get Iron, Wheat, and Incense. Oh, and I only played 9 turns, since I was the one who played 11 and got us off track, LOL, we are back on schedule now.

 

[schwartz]

Actually Bleys, we're off schedule again if you only played 9. I had already put us back by playing 9
Nice looking set. I don't think we can lose if we tried

 

[Bleys]

If your drafting consider the globe in Yaso. The forests to the south can be chopped to speed it up

Good plan here, lets further delay the Taj and get the Globe up in Yaso. I chopped a forest there already, into a Stable I think, I am less attentive to such things this late in the game.

Stick some Knights in front of Taj until the Globe is done, pop Taj, switch to Slavery, Theocracy, and Nationalism, draft and whip a pile of troops, Rifles, Cannons and Knights, and we can even have a split-stack striking Qin in 2 spots. He will not be able to retaliate at all.

One suggestion, as we are waiting for this, build Triemes in the Northern coastal cities. I see Qin has a bunch of Galleys up there, he could try a back-door naval landing. I put a rifle in a couple of those coastal cities, we can even draft a 2nd and leave it there (with Theo and Barracks we will get 1 promotion on a draft, I think). We have time, and could even plan to whip out Triemes the turn we get the GA and switch into Slavery.

Actually Bleys, we're off schedule again if you only played 9. I had already put us back by playing 9
Nice looking set. I don't think we can lose if we tried

Argh! I thought it was off by 1, my end turn was 350, year 1650, looked like the proper numbers, LOL. no worries.

 

[schwartz]

Well somebody else could've played 11 between us. 350 and 1650 seems correct.
As long as the numbers are right, no worries about the amount of turns we think we've played. Could be I played 10 by accident too

 

[Groogaroo]

Well all seems well with the game, everything going to plan. So I guess we just keep building up our army of Rifles/Cannons/Knights. Just a reminder of the Roster,

The roster:
1. Krick19 > Up Now
2. Groogaroo > On deck
3. Schwartz
4. S.ilver
5. Rex rgis of Ter
6. Grandad
7. Bleys > Just played

 

[Krick19]

Got it, but may need a bit of time. Also, we will prob have to raze Xian right? So I think the two victories we could aim for and easily get are space and dom. What should we get?

 

[grandad1982]

Dom. Lets put this mother to bed! If Qins land isn't enough then Suleimans will be! Remember that not to let Qin capitulate to us.

Don't raze Xian IMO. This late in the game its not worth the hassel, its only 2 coastal tiles after all and it'll have a loads of buildings already - hopefully.

Remember to farm the cottage at Wat to irrigate the rice.

Also if we are gunning for Qin don't waist the hammers on the Hermitage as that cultural pressure will soon be gone....

 

[S.ilver]

Xian is where Qin's entire military is. This presents a strategic problem, because his stack of trebs there can hit us before we've had a chance to take the city (and that would be some ugly collateral). Not sure what the best way to deal with this is, because we're stuck sitting in hit cultural borders for at least one turn before we can take the city (use the spy to cause a revolt so we don't need to bombard defenses, just suicide the cannons).

The power graph is pretty overwhelmingly in our favour, but we have no knights, so there's no easy way to destroy all those trebs except by actually fighting them one on one.

I'm actually in favour of letting the Taj build finish, and then mass switching Civics and going around to beat people's heads in. Put in Police State, Nationhood, and Free Religion, do one round (or maybe a bit less) of building knights and more rifles, and declare on Qin (we have to cancel open borders first). We don't need religion to appease Qin if we're going to attack him, and Sulei's army is on the other side of his Civ, currently dealing with other problems (most likely dealing with Viking troops streaming through Japan).

EDIT: Let's also forget about JC and any naval adventures. It's simply not worth building boats if we're trying to hit domination by steamrolling.

 

[Roxlimn]

Unit production target: 8 Knights, 15 Cannon.

Plus whatever Rifles can be drafted in time.

 

[grandad1982]

Surley the knights can attack after they enter enermy lands? Or is crossing the border a 2 move move. If you see what I mean.

15 cannons? Looks like we need to crack the whip guys

 

[Groogaroo]

Also if we are gunning for Qin don't waist the hammers on the Hermitage as that cultural pressure will soon be gone....

Yup that makes sense to me, lets just focus on taking qin.

EDIT: Let's also forget about JC and any naval adventures. It's simply not worth building boats if we're trying to hit domination by steamrolling.

Again this too makes sense, we should just focus on land wars and getting our % to win the game

 

[S.ilver]

Surley the knights can attack after they enter enermy lands? Or is crossing the border a 2 move move. If you see what I mean.

Yeah, but unless you just want to attack Xian with knights, we need 2 turns for the siege. And the knights get no flank attack when the siege is in a city either. The ideal way to deal with that stack is if it came to us.

 

[grandad1982]

Oh. I see. Not something I realised about the flank attack. Well DoW and let him come to us hopefully? If we have a massive stack at Wat will it stop him leaving the city? Or am I giving the AI to much credit

If he stays put then target another city first.

 

[Krick19]

So just build military really. Alright.

 

[schwartz]

IMO we need to hit his main stack first. Then he'll be easy pickings. If we include a Medic in our stack the collateral damage will be healed right away. We still have the Medic GG don't we?

 

[S.ilver]

IMO we need to hit his main stack first. Then he'll be easy pickings. If we include a Medic in our stack the collateral damage will be healed right away. We still have the Medic GG don't we?

Don't underestimate Qin's stack though. He has enough Trebs there to do some serious damage if he's smart and uses them first to beat our stack to hell (not to mention CKNs collateral). His units may be obsolete, but the collateral really adds up. Our units need to be alive in order to heal from a medic.

The question is whether the AI is smart enough to strike first with all the siege though.

 

[schwartz]

Fair point, but 2 things that I may or may not be right about (anybody know for sure?)
I THINK that the collateral damage will be applied to the most healthy units first.
There's also a limit on collateral damage to a given unit.
I did, however, forget about the collateral caused by CKNs

I don't consider the AI to be too smart, although it does prefer to attack with siege first (I doubt that he'll use ALL of it first though)

 

[grandad1982]

Hmmm. Doesn't one of the drill promos give a colateral reduction? I can't really remember. Thats beer for you

I still think the best bet is to let him come to us with the stack. Those slow troops will be sitting there for at least a turn before they can bombard. Provided they go for Wat of course - can't see why they wouldn't.

 

[Krick19]

Wait guys, what civics do we want?