NCSG1-Suryavarman II!

[Groogaroo]

Okay I guess I'm up next. so... Got it!

Ummm... Okay maybe a nice concise version of what the hell we do next???



Its late here in the UK so I'm off to bed, will play and post tommorrow.

 

[Bleys]

You had trade partners in that game? Everyone was too pissed at me

Actually, I kept Justinian at + most of the game by fake-joining his wars on Ragnar. Vicky was also OK to me until I thumped her, I got 3 techs off her for HBR as I was taking out Freddy. Once I took out Wang, though, she was not pleased, I declared on her friend, and had close borders, blah blah, LOL. It wasnt long before I had -diplo with everyone, just because of religion, mostly. I didnt swap to Hindu until after Wang, I think, that was about it for any friendships. I could still trade with Justinian though, in fact, I sold techs to them all quite a bit. Often would finish a wonder, and see "Justinian has 470 gold for trade" message, and sell him something to keep my economy alive. Thats a nice feature of the HoF mod, telling you which AIs have gold or GPT according to parameters you set in the Options window.

Groo, your mission is to finish off Willy. Get the Axes out and busy. He wont have any more surprises, since we now have his source of metal. Raze Utrech, keep The Hague, though, I think that can get some Beaver eventually with enough culture.

Other than that, we need Courthouses and another jungle city to cut off Qin up there, with a quick Courthouse as well, especially in the Sugar City, the Copper City, the Stone City, and Amsterdam (all the farthest from home, basically). You will get IW during your turns, so try to get another settler up to the Dye site, but after that I wouldnt make another settler for quite a while, theres an Archer up there already, so you could even send a worker ahead and pre-chop some jungle so the -health isnt too bad (we are EXP though, so the health shouldnt be an issue). Build what you think it best, more workers are never wasted, a few more archers shipped out to garrison our new cities wont hurt either. Libraries are also going to be needed, especially in those jungle cities, they are going to be nice commerce cities with lots of extra food for specialists. Oh and a Library in Cap would be nice, and get a Scientist Specialist up if possible, start cranking out some GP points.

So theres lots to do, but basically the most important is KILL BILL! After that, we can consolidate our position some, Courts and Libs, etc etc. I do want to tech Alpha and Aestet + Lit before going over to MC, CS and Machinery, though.

 

[schwartz]

Actually, I was able to make 2 tech trades in the KK game; both with Justinian.

Good summary of our goals too, some GPPs would be excellent at this point, we can probably take a break from warring after finishing willy and get infrastructure up before a possible medieval attack against JC. I think the capital should probably move to Amsterdam later on, Yasod is not in an ideal spot.

 

[Bleys]

If we are planning Caesar next, I think we save the Cap move for Rome, he has gems up there, good for Bur. If we plan Qin next, we may want to consider moving the cap to our Sugar city, it can support a LOT of rivered cottages, but we should consider that to be our GP farm right now, planning to farm a lot of it, get Calendar up for the Sugars, and Holy Food City Batman! Thats a potential 30+ pop city easy if the game goes that long.

I do think we should wait a while to decide that though. Lets pull our economy out of the toilet. Wars are mad fun, but building lots of units and grabbing cities far from the Cap is dangerous. I think its important to stay ahead in techs, especially since we really dont want to see Praet's or Chu's headed our way. We can build troops as we build infrastructure and Wonders, as well. I LOVE whip overflow for building Wonders, if your the first one to the tech, you can usually get the Wonder and build a bunch of stuff doing it with whip-overflow. It is my favorite technique, really. I am a terrible Wonder Whore, LOL, just look at my KK game list. Built em all and still had a huge army, using the Whip. I tend to stay in Slavery for a large chunk of the game unless I specifically need Merchants before I have Markets up. Even in a pure SE, you can run a LOT of specialists with specific buildings. Once I hit State Property and such, and a couple key Workshop techs, I will run Caste for the hammers, and with a SPI civ I bounce in and out of Slavery and run Caste mostly, but for non-SPI civs, I really like Slavery's production boost. Especially with Nationhood and Theocracy. Build and whip strong troops with nice XP, and draft solid ones for a few turns, looking at the happy caps all the while, heh, and let the populations grow back up while you send em off to war. I am a REXer type anyway, old habits are hard to break, so I usually have lots of cities with lots of population in them, waiting for those whip/draft turns so I can ruin some AIs day

 

[grandad1982]

Axes! Both millitary and worker axes is whats needed Groogaroo.

Thom will would make a pretty sweet Oxford capital site.

For me Qin should be next as hes backstabber and I want to see some praets hitting the Ottermen empire. So lets make nice to Caeser and get an friend.

Will Sullimans free shock promo upgrade on to maces?

 

[Groogaroo]

Hey, Cool... I got the picture! cheers. I think I just start to panic everytime my turn comes round I will play later today as I'm in I'm in London right now.

 

[Groogaroo]

Okay there is good news and bad news... read on.

Turn 140 - Inherited turn

I move an archer to Amsterdam, to free up our axe.

Turn 141

Yasod, archer in > start on a library

This Axe by the Hague is level 4, Yay! I give him CR3. he has good odds to take th hague.

The hague taken. Not sure what to build here, looks like it will be low on food so I start a granary.

Turn 142

Our uber axe get a random event, which completly heals him, nice!

Turn 143

He then proceed's to nab williems worker.

Turn 144

I borrow one of our fog busting archers to garrison the hague and free up our uber axe for the imminent attack on Utrecht, the nabbed worker starts on building a route for now.

Turn 145

Yasod, Axe is in start another axe

Turn 146

I sent our axe to check willem's last defense, arrgh! he has another axe? must have built it before we took amsterdam

A.Thom, Axe is in starts on another axe

Start building a route to Dye/Rice city.

Turn 148

Willem's axe attack our axe and losses. few! means we only have archers to face now.

Turn 149

Yasod, library is in, starts on a settler for Dye/Rice city I run a couple of scientists here as we are leaking money a bit and I don't want to burn all our gold.

Turn 150

A.Thom, Axe is in start on Courthouse. another random event.

Turn 151

our axes advance on willem.

Qin asks for open borders, I notice we don't have OB with anyone yet. I decline for now.

Turn 153

Iron working is in, I go for alpha next.

Here is our stack. I think I went over board building axes . Sorry. willem still only has an archer and warrior in Utretch.

We lost one axe, Willem is no more... we raze the city.

Finished off the turnset whipping both courthouses in Hari and A.thom ouch, but they will grow back quickly (still havn't got the hang of effective whipping) both have started on a library.

Hague finished its granary and has started on a library (not sure what else to build there?)

Noticed this at the end of my turn.

Darn! qin has settle near our spot. I should have put more attention on getting a settler out quicker rather than building so many axes! Guess we have to discuss what the next move is with this city spot. By the way there are two workers here that were building a route.

I moved the axes to Amsterdam for now, not sure whether you want to start a new war? or disperse the troops around our cities. I think If we disperse them we could do with deleting a couple of warriors to help our economy a bit.

Well it could have gone better, losing that city spot to qin was a bummer! Looking back I really didn't need all those axes and definatley could have focused more on the settler and workers.

The world

and... toku is the first leader to alphabet, he also has maths? Toku the tech monster!

The Roster

1. Krick19
2. Groogaroo -> Justplayed
3. Schwartz -> Up Now
4. S.ilver -> On Deck
5. Rex rgis of Ter
6. Grandad
7. Bleys

Schwartz, you might want to check the cities at the beginning of the turn, the capital is currently running two scientists so you might want to adjust that.

Edit - Forgot the save... opps.

 

[grandad1982]

Nice set. I'm glad Willem is gone, he gets on my tits! I wouldn't worry about the axes. If we needed them but didn't have them it would be worse.

We can still settle the sugar city east of Thom and there are some ok sites north and west of the Dam.

An alternate site for the next settler could be 1N of the flood plain where Utrecht used to be.

 

[schwartz]

Got it. I'll play tomorrow, I want to hear what you guys think about the situation.
Tech-wise I think we should go with: Alphabet (finish) -> Aesthetics -> Literature and backfill some through trades/self-tech.
Militarily, I'd go towards Qin, after he settled our site. JC might make more sense though, despite that.
Once I get some input from the rest of you, I'll go ahead and play.

 

[Krick19]

Great job groo. Nice job finishing off willy.

 

[Groogaroo]

I definatley agree with Aes/lit as our next tech targets. We wanna get maths soon (maybe trade for it) so we can get calander for some of our resources.

With Qin, even just going to war to grab our city site back is feasable, we have 5 axes stationed at amsterdam (1 is CR3, 1 CR2 the others CR1) and a settler nearly finished in the capital. We can always sue for peace straight after.

I think its time to consolidate and start thinking of our overall plan, do we plan to run a lot of specialists, should we make a start on the pyramids now we have stone, we need sailing for lighthouses (there's only three turns left on it... I should have thought of that during my set!).

We possibly still need one or two more workers, I nabbed 1 but didn't build any during my turn.

Sorry Schwartz if I've left you a bit of a mess to sort out remember to look over our cities and tweak them to how you like them.



EDIT - Yes I'm very happy will is out of the game, he's just starting to bug me these days too!

 

[schwartz]

We possibly still need one or two more workers, I nabbed 1 but didn't build any during my turn.

No worries about that. Especially if we go to war, just read my writeup on the KK game and you'll see what I mean. I built maybe 4-6 workers that game but had almost 20 at the end.
Also, you played a fine turnset there. No complaints about it at all, you have to expect to be a bit backwards after the early rush, but with some good cities already settled I think we can get back on track very soon.

 

[grandad1982]

I would love to take out Qin. I see the Romans as steadfast Allies with a beefy unit to back them up!

I agree with the tech path to lit.

We should only go for the mids if we can spare the production. How long would they take in Yaso? If we're shotting for millitary win here then Mids could give us some nice flexability with our civics.

Does anyone else think Thom should be an Oxford city? Maybe even the capital if/when we move it. Its well placed if we go for a later war with Caeser to be in the middle of our lands.

@schwartz
After alpha maybe you could ajust ep's to a good tech candidate - I'm rubbish at espionage and would love to practice some in this game!

 

[Groogaroo]

We should only go for the mids if we can spare the production. How long would they take in Yaso?

It's about 30 turns. the stone is hooked up now so I think its definatley worth going for it if we don't have anything mega urgent to build.

 

[Krick19]

Ugh, not war, not war. Still moping about the endless turns I spent at 0 science with KK. I'd want to aim for space or diplo.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I think we should build up our economy before attacking anyone else.

Literature is a good tech but we should also look for an early Civil Service. I want to mace the chinese.

 

[grandad1982]

I agree, economy should come first ATM. Lets whip these puppys into shape !

I'm trying for a diplo win in my KK game! Maybe we should try for space as early as possible, and see if we can streamline the tech path? Also for those who want mayhem, the tech edge you'll porbably have in going for space means some later wars are pretty fun! Tanks verses rifles anyone?!

If we build the Mids in Yaso, we should try for the Hanging Gardens too, for th GE points - hmm bloody GP points form Oracle - with a forge etc we could get some GE's for later wonders (State of Liberty springs to mind), or even Mining INC. GE for Internet, Space Elevator or Three Gorges are all pretty good uses as well. I realise this is a long way off in game and rin real time but hey, might as well think about it a bit!

 

[Bleys]

Here is my suggested path for the immediate future.

1. Consolidate our land advantage. We will need to get our cities working improved tiles and making important buildings in order to try and take on Qin. Krick is right, another war too soon would hurt our economy too much.

2. Tech Lit, followed by the bee-line to CS and Machinery. I would LOVE to get a GE to bulb Machinery while we are teching CS, thats a killer combo that would put us WAY up on the power ranking. We also want Currency and Calendar as quick as we can, both are very important techs for our economy.

3. Cities should be pumping out Courthouses ASAP, but work high-food tiles if you can. We wont want to be in Slavery forever, in fact, shortly after getting the Mids built, we will want to swap out of it. In the meantime, lets use it. We have food out the ying-yang. Thats leads to . . .

4. Build the Mids, using whip overflow to put hammers into it often, either with units, workers/settlers if we need to stall growth, or even cheap buildings. Save forests for after Maths, but once we have that we can chop some too. If we start them now, its likely that we are a lock to get them, even if we interrupt them a few times for key buildings and units, like a Forge, like a Library, like a few more Archers and Axes, whatever, etc. This is a Noble game, but I guarantee that once some of you use this technique in an actual game, you will be see how good it is and become much better fast. Trust me guys, its the BOMB, and works the best with an early Food Based economy, which is exactly what we have. Build em in the Cap, too, no worries about GP point pollution, so what if we get a Prophet instead of an Engineer? Sure, we would rather have a GE, but we arent exactly depending on it for anything game-threatening specific. A Settled Prophet is very strong early, and we have a Holy City for a shrine too. Either choice would be mega strong, especially if we plan to try and convert Caesar to Confu. Later, sure, we want to add GE points with the Gardens and running an Engineer Specialist so we can pop some GEs, but for now, any Great Person would be fine.

5. We want Julius Caesar to be a game-long Warmonger toy we can say "Sick Em!" too when we need too. We all know the AI sucks at war, but that suckiness is exponential when they try to fight on 2 fronts, heh. Seriously, we can use JC constantly to soften any enemy we want, but first, he MUST share our religion and we MUST avoid "-You Traded With Our Worst Enemy" modifiers. Check his status with other AIs all the time, and make sure we dont trade with his worst enemy, even Open Borders. That is likely Qin right now, so be extra careful.

6. Yes, we lost our Dye city site, but thats not going to kill us. Let Qin build some improvements for us while we consolidate. He is our next target, eventually. In the meantime, get another city up parallel to him, around the same line as our Sugar City. It will give us some culture pressure and will help that Dye city a ton once we take it. Even if we have to galley a Settler + Archer up there, to the North, do it, its worth it.

Thats about it. Once we accomplish some of these goals, especially the Mids and Courthouses and Libraries everywhere, we will be set for the game. After that we can begin expanding again, either by war or by settler, even Galley settlers in the islands to our east. We should be exploring them now, if we can get a workboat out without too much lost time.

 

[schwartz]

Okay, turnset will be played tonight.
I'll focus on whipping/building some basic infrastructure in all cities and starting the mids in the capital.

 

[schwartz]

Hmm, I'm not so pleased with how I played, but I'll let you guys be the judges of that.

Turn 0:
I look into all our cities and make a couple changes
Hague switches from a library to a courthouse. It puts out .8 bpt and has very little +food so the library is useless atm.
Thom switches a citizen from the corn tile to a cottage, it's at happy cap and will grow with the corn, may as well work some commerce until whip anger goes away.
Amsterdam whips the archer for 42 hammer overflow into a courthouse.

And now my set begins.

Turn 1:
Barbs have settled east of Qin's city, near some potential sites of ours. The next settler doesn't really have a great spot to settle in, but I'll have to make a decision on the fly.

Also, Suleiman has some missionaries roaming around, looks like he's trying to convert Qin right now.

I switch Thom from the grassland cows to the mine, starving it of one food. This speeds up the library there and also prevents it from becoming unhappy.

Turn 2:
Library in Hari due next turn, it switches from Plains mine to a grassland cottage

Turn 3:
Hari - Library -> worker

Thom switches back to the cows, as it won't grow in one turn now. I plan to micro this until a cottage is finished 1N of the city.

This is the new plan for our settler from Yasod. This spot is not as optimal as the old one that Qin stole, but I think it's defintely second best. Other option was 1N of the floodplain near where Utrecht was. As I want to avoid bleeding maintainence money, I will settle the first one.

Turn 4:
Thom moves from the cows to the hill, you get the picture by now.

G Spy born in a far away land

Turn 5:
Yasod - Settler -> 'Mids

Prophet pops in Yasod, he heads over to Hari to build the confucian shrine. Settler is headed for "new spot"

Thom removes its spy specialist and works 3 cottages + grassland hill. Library in in 8, whip anger also gone in 8, it will be unhappy for 5 turns.

Turn 6:
Thom's borders pop. Worker heads over to hook up horses

Julius settled "option 2"

Yasod slips an axe in front of the mids, switch tiles for 6 hammers and will whip it for 2 pop next turn with 100 hammers overflowing into the mids

Hari switches from pig to grassland hill, worker still due in 5, The Hague works the now free pigs for max growth.

Turn 7:
Whip axe at Yasod

Thom moves back to the cows to avoid starvation (unhappy face now @ pop 5)

Get the Kong Miao:

gives us 4 GPT for now, allowing me to bump the science slider to 90 cutting 4 turns off of alphabet (running a deficit for now)

Turn 8:
Our overflow at work

Angkor Wat founded, starts a granary:

Turn 9:

Nothing to report

Turn 10:

Alphabet in, and here's the tech situation.

Research set to Polytheism towards Aesthetics and Lit.

Qin and Julius have had alpha for a couple of turns, but no one will trade anything of value.

Turn 11:
Hari - Worker -> Archer (4 turns coincides with The Hague's growth. It will then take it's pigs back and run a scientist or 2.)

Yasod is due to grow next turn and I will whip another axe for 2 pop to overflow another 100 hammers into the mids. The first whip has will have 10 turns remaining next turn, so it may have a happy problem for a turn or two.

Turn 12:
Whip axe in Yasod.

Reconfigure to stanate until whip anger subsides. Run a scientist for now.

Turn 13:
Whip Courthouse in Amsterdam.

Nothing else interesting. Notice the in waiting too long to crack the whip.

Turn 14:
Finish library in A. Thom, run 2 scientists while working cows + 2 cottages. Once our happy caps go up, one turn from growth. Starts a sword

Amsterdam - Courthouse -> Granary

Also I noticed some HUGE . I've been sitting here 13+ turns with some veteran axes, and yet I NEVER went to raze that barb city to our south . I send them there now, will cancel the goto orders for the next player although I advise continuing there.

Turn 15:

Hari - Archer -> Worker
It starts working its pigs again and running a scientist. I moved the citizen off of the hamlet that still has almost 20 turns to a village.

Whip Courthouse in The Hague.

Turn 16:
Polytheism -> Aesthetics
Still no one softening up on the trading boards. Suleiman has monarchy now.

The Hague - Courthouse -> Library

A. Wat's borders pop. We should easily out-culture Qin over there, as he STILL has not popped his borders.

Turn 17:
Amsterdam - Granary -> Library
Nothing else interesting.

Turn 18:

Well, good news and bad.
Qin is willing to trade at this point. He'd give us monarchy + sailing for CoL. However, we have the monopoly on that and no one else will trade with us. Additionally, we're Caesar's 'worst enemy'. Uhhhhh.

I reject the trade for now. Next turnset S.ilver will still have the opportunity.

Turn 19:

The Hague - Library -> Axe

Yasod fires its scientist to work the cows, it'll grow one turn after the whip anger subsides (more on my part, meant to do this last turn to have growth coincide with the whip anger. Meh.)


Turn 20:

Our axemen move into position near the barb city.
Nothing else interesting. Only thing left to do is micro cities if you so choose S.ilver (My guess is you will, I didn't have such a good set..)