NCSG1-Suryavarman II!

[schwartz]

I disagree with switching those university builds. We need six for oxford and we only have two now..
Also, having a bunch of forests sitting around doing nothing for anyone doesn't do us any good, chop them ASAP. Not like putting 30 hammers into a wonder is going to help much at this stage. Thanks for correcting my little bit of with our specialists.

 

[S.ilver]

I disagree with switching those university builds. We need six for oxford and we only have two now..

I don't think Oxford is pressing though. We have at least a 6 tech lead on everyone, including Qin. More pressing is getting our cities building stuff that they actually need. Our tech rate is eons ahead of the competition and we need to worry more about our military than beakers.

Also, having a bunch of forests sitting around doing nothing for anyone doesn't do us any good, chop them ASAP. Not like putting 30 hammers into a wonder is going to help much at this stage. Thanks for correcting my little bit of with our specialists.

If we leave the forests alone, they can expand. Case in point, I had a forest expansion near Ravenna (although not into that fat cross). Our workers also have much better things to be doing than chopping forests (like retooling old rome), since many of the forests are near high production cities anyways.

You're right about the wonders though. The extra hammers would probably be negligible.

So I guess we keep building infastructure only where needed but start cranking out a some rifles, don't forget we have two settled GG at Rome and 1 at Amsterdam (I think it was there?).

The settled GG is actually in Hari. Which complicates things slightly (leans towards making Hari a hybrid city).

 

[schwartz]

Good points. I just wanted to understand the reasoning behind your decisions. That's how we all improve

 

[grandad1982]

What? We still haven't moved the capital!!! I do realise we had more pressing matters to attend to, but I kind of promised Suryman a new palace to play in! I think I may start the build in my turn set if no one objects!

Rex. Get some rifles in our border cities ASAP. IMO this is more important than almost any other consideration.

Also as S.ilver points out we've been pretty lazy at religious spread. With two holy shrines we could be rolling in cash. If we are really thinking of killing the AP then spreading religions around is a very good idea as it makes FR even more taisty - not till we've tamed Qin though.

We should think about a draft city at some point soon - rifles make drafting worth while (how about Yaso after we relocate the capital?)

 

[S.ilver]

What? We still haven't moved the capital!!! I do realise we had more pressing matters to attend to, but I kind of promised Suryman a new palace to play in! I think I may start the build in my turn set if no one objects!

lol. Yeah after all my stalling to get everyone's opinion, I go ahead and DON'T start the palace. In other news though, Ravenna will finally be in good enough shape to build it fairly quickly.

Also as S.ilver points out we've been pretty lazy at religious spread. With two holy shrines we could be rolling in cash. If we are really thinking of killing the AP then spreading religions around is a very good idea as it makes FR even more taisty - not till we've tamed Qin though.

I was seriously considering switching to Free Religion with the Free Speech change, but we cannot afford to lose diplo points with Qin, due to our paper army. Also, the religion thing is the ONLY thing giving us positive diplo with Suleiman.

Due to having OR right now, we can build missionaries in any of our cities with religion in them. Unfortunately, we only have Buddhism in 3 cities, and it will be a pain to spread it, because those cities are relatively production poor. Spreading religion really hasn't been a priority for us. Again, it was probably major for us to go after the UoS. Hammers would've been better spent on the Sistine Chapel, to boost our already heavy specialist economy. (Which is in Instanbul by the way)

Still this gives us a good reason to burn the AP, because it's not meshing well with our strategy, and can really cause some damage politically. It's not like we're destroying anything worthwhile anyways. Other than have the top culture in the world, Nidaros only has the Buddhist shrine and Stonehenge. We might as well raze out Ragnar while we're at it, because he only has 3 cities.

We should think about a draft city at some point soon - rifles make drafting worth while (how about Yaso after we relocate the capital?)

Not sure about drafting in our particular situation. While Nationhood is no upkeep (which is nice), we lose the extra cash from towns. Cristo Redentor is also quite a ways away, so we can't exactly switch civics at will.

 

[grandad1982]

Hmm last point is a good one. If/when we go to war or we are DoW on then a switch to nationhood could prove worthwhile.

 

[grandad1982]

Hello? Whats going on then?

 

[S.ilver]

Rex has not been seen for a little less than 3 days?

You want to take it grandad?

 

[Krick19]

Yeah, I hate to do this to Rex, but we should move on.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I'll report in less than n hour.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

Turn 1
Little happened, I built improvements. Ravenna started a monarstary.

Turn 2
Once again, building improvments. Antium, Hari, Amsterdam, and Ivsar started missionaries (Hindu or Confucain). Tokugawa is elected head of the AP.

Turn 3
Nothing happened, but the improvment of land west of Antium.

Turn 4
Amsterdam and Ivsar complete missionaries, and move on Rifleman. Hinduism is spread to Amsterdam, the Capital completes a harbour, and starts on a Confucain missionary. Confucainsim spread to Isvar.

Turn 5
I finish Nationhood. Begin Chemistry so we can ruin the Ai's economy via privateers.

Turn 6
hari finishes a Confu missionary and spreads to Nagara. Hari builds another missionary. Angkor Wat completes a Buddist Monarstary, and begins a Market

Turn 7
Qin completes the Hagia Sophia. Raja completes a Baray and starts a courthouse. Yasod completes a missionary, which is sent to Angkor Wat. It begins another missionary.

Turn 8
Hari, Rome, and Nagara complete their builds and begin riflemen. Confucianism is spread to Angkor Wat.

Turn 9
Improvments are being built, units/buildings being made.

Turn 10
Ravenna, Rome, Isvarpura, and Amsterdam finish their builds. Rome begins a hindu missionary, the rest start on riflemen. Qin made peace with Suliemen.

Other
The two shrines are giving 17 and 15 gold.
Palace is ready to be began.
We are getting hapiness penalties in Rome for the motherland. I'm in favour of destroying JC forever.

 

[grandad1982]

Coolio. I'll check the save tomorrow morning and probably play afternoon or monday morning.

Can't wait to build the palace! Also I'm happy for JC to die. When I've seen the save I'll post my plans for you guys to think on.

 

[grandad1982]

OK I've checked the save but haven't played yet.

Most of this post will concern national wonders.

These are the national wonders we can build. NE, HE, Hermitage, FP, Globe* and Oxford*.

Globe and Oxford require 3 more theatres and Universities respectivley.

Heres my thoughts on where they should/could go.

In no particular order:

Hermitage - Wat (its under a lot of cultural pressure and could flip 2 Chinese cities - Xian and Tianjin).

Oxford - Thom (lots of food and good cottage land).

NE - Yaso (if this is just going to run specialists then it fits well).

Globe - Yaso (high food a little other use could make this an emergancy draft city).

HE - Rome (good production, coastal and 2 settled GG) or Hari (not coastal but good production and 1 settled GG) or Dam (coastal, ok production).

FP - Wat (if we go after Qin at some point it would be a good location).

Future national wonders: Wall Street, IW. I haven't though about the others yet but lets not get to far ahead of ourselves here!

Wall Street - Hari (Conf shrine) or Rome (Hindu shrine). Hari is my preference.

IW - Rome (potential for massive production)????? Not sure were else yet. If IW in Rome then HE shoulds go to Dam or Hari - Dam for preference as its coastal.

Any thoughts here? I'm not saying I'm about to start all of these buildings but ones like the NE and HE should really have been built ages ago IMO.

Thinking I may start Taj in Isvara after a theatre as it could use the culture and also its got a high production so both buildings will be done in around 24 turns.

Going to start some Uni's as well maybe. It would be nice if we were in a position to use the Taj GA to build our national wonders.

Tech: Steel is my prefered option - we only have 2 siege units!! - but we could go optics and then astro (Qin will give us optics, DoW againts Ragnar and 450 cash for some tech (just saying ). We don't need Astro to badly ATM but cannons and drydocks would be super sweet.

We're about half way to our next GG. I think we need MilSci before he arrives so we can build Military Academies.

Ummm..... not sure what else right now. Oh yer should I start the palace in Ravenna? It can be done in about 10 turns or 9 with starvation. Actually I might start this regardless!!

So to recap my plan for this turn. Tech steel. Build rifles and spread religion. Which religion I consentrate on may depend on which city we put Wall Street in. Build some galleys to get our forces to JC's last city. Start some theatres and universities if possible. Start Taj.


Edit.

Oh yer heres some photos of my walking trip in Scotland. A bit OT but I thought you might like to see some of them!

Spoiler :

Loch Lomond

Our camp site - it was such a lush location!!!

Yes that is me looking like a complete dick! Boy it was windy on those peaks.

 

[grandad1982]

Well turns out I had time to play this afternoon.

Hopefully not to many duff moves!

Preflight Checks

I cycled through the cities and did the following:

Dam - start a theatre.

Wat - change a spy to an artist.

Nagra - rework tiles to get the same food and production but +1 !!!

Ravenna - start the palace. Horray!

Isvara - start a theatre.

Rome - rework tiles and more than double production with +5 still!

Antium - rework tiles for extra food.

Medio - fire a scientist and work more

Arretium - rework tiles for more

I put some EP towards Ragnar in antisipation of a potential AP strike later.

Stop some workers roading to chop for Ravenna.

I trade Qin guilds for optics and 450 cash. He was already teching guilds.

Hit enter!!!

Turn 1

Yaso finishes its Conf missionary and starts the NE. I fire a scientist to speed up growth in Yaso - 29 down to 10 turns!

Start to change improvement inline with S.ilvers recomended city specialisations. Also start to road tiles which will benifit from railways in the future.

Turn 2

Chem> Steel.

Thom finishes Conf missionary and starts a grocer to combat poor health there.

Isvara - theatre> Taj. I fire an artist here to work more food. This should be ok with the +10 coming from the Taj soon.

Make this trade as he is only 3 turns off teching it.

Sadly we don't get a diplo + from it.

Hire an artist in Arretium - don't want to risk losing that seafood!

Copper mined near Rome.

Conf Spread to Cumae.

Turn 3

Nagara - rifle> rifle.

Conf Spread to Arretium. Also it finishes its courthouse and starts a theatre to help the culture war.

Make a trade.

Turn 4

Notice a forest not in a BFC near Ravenna with a luimbermill! I start a chop there.

Hari - rifle> uni. This might be a smoke move but we still need 3 more to unlock Oxford! I swap a merchant for an engineer.

I rework some tiles in various cities after remembering Chem gives a boost to workshops. Better late than never!

Change the engineer in Thom to a scientist.

For some reason Suleiman goes from -2 to -1 diplo with us.

I make this trade with Ragnar. The bonous of this is that if Suleiman asks us to cancel the deal we get some easy diplo points by dropping Ragnar out on his arse.

Turn 5

Dam - rifle> HE.

While writing this I notice the cottage 1NE of the Dam. Needs to be changed to a workshop IMO.

Rome - rifle> barracks. I really can't belive it doesn't have one already. Amazing.

I notice something happening on our eastern borders.

They weren't there a few turns back. I make a note to keep checking if Qin is "....hands full...." but hes not so far.

Arretium - theatre> Conf missionary.

Mendio is at happy cap so I hire an artist there.

After many thousands of years disscusing moving the capital the new palace is built in Ravenna! Sury is so pleased that he holds a party and doesn't go to bed for days!!! Which explains his facial colour. I start a libary there.

The new palace has in instant effect and allows me to put the science slider upto 50%! Yer baby! Yer!

Turn 6

Antium - Hindu missionary> Theatre.

Nagara - rifle> rifle.

Rome - barracks> caravel.

Get a +1 diplo with Qin. Not sure what changed.

Go for some deficite research. Steel in in 2 turns.

IBT

Ragnar drops by offering 160 cash for banking

Turn 7

Start to farm a cottage near Wat to irrigate the rice as growth is nonexistant here.

Hinduism spreads to the always enlightened Dam.

Thom - grocer> bank.

Yaso - NE> Conf missionary. I hire an extra scientist here as it'll grow soon regardless.

Turn 8

Steel> Constitution. I spent along time thinking this over. I decided I wanted to open up corp for Wall Street. RR and SciMethod were pretty close. As was stream, astro and MilSci!!! Hahahaha. Also constitution opens up demo and the SoL.... Ummm SoL on a pangea map

Dam HE> rifle.

Medio - forge> theatre. Another close call. Nearly went harbour as its close heath cap and growth is already slow there but the cultural pressure from China needs combating. Also if I'm not mistaken it opens up the Globe. I fire a scientist and work some more food now the happy cap is back up.

Drop the sciences slider back to 50% so we're making money again.

IBT

Trade maps with Suleiman.

Turn 9

Rome - caravel> spy. See where this is going?

Pop a GSci from Yaso. I send him to Thom to build an acadamy.

Wat - market> forge.

Ravenna - libary> university. After this we only need one more for Oxford.

I realise I'm being an idiot and do this!

Doh! In fact I'm still an idiot as I should just irrigate the cottage 1W of Wat. Feel free to mock me and then change the worker orders. Again.

Ragnar, Suleiman and Qin are 1 turn form teching banking so I shop it around. I get 65, 20, and 0 cash respectivally.

Turn 10

Arretium - Conf missionary> forge. Senfd the missionary to Medio.

Hague - rifle> cannon.

Ok here come the info screens.

Cities

As you can see the 3 highest production cities (in desending order) are; Isvara, the Dam, and Rome.

This makes me wonder if Isvara is a good IW site. I think I may still prefer Rome though as it has less sea tiles and thus more potential. It should definately NOT go to the Dam as the HE is there now. If the IW goes to Isvara then Rome should get a Military Acadamy to speed up troop production there.

Glance

We're not very popular. We should have defied the AP vote for war on Suleiman.

Power

Our rifles are pulling us away here.

Demo

That is so silly how far ahead we are!

I can't even be bothered to include a tech screen as we're trashing them so badly!

Victory

We could shoot for a Dom win here if we want with out to much trouble IMO.

So I hope you guys don't mind me starting our city specialisation but it was really getting to me!

@ Bleys

You should stop the Taj before its finished - no one else has nationalism yet IIRC - and get everything ready to build our national wonders when the GA starts or shortly after so we can power through.
Also we could use the GA for some civics changes if anyone thinks its worth while. I can't say I was inspired to conemplate it yet!

Hermatige in Wat IMO is also good idea. Not sure if that'll be you or some one else though.

WS in Hari? Thats why I've been sending out the Conf missionarys at least.

If you wonder why I'm connecting resourses out side of BFCs such as iron its because I'm thinking ahead to potential Mining inc. bonouses.

Banteay needs a WB after its court is finished.

Umm. Can't think of anything else yet.

Final shot of our new capital! Yay! Its such a wonderful location, with riverside views and so many beautifull gems that Sury wonders why he didn't move in sooner. Oh well....

The roster
1. Krick19 - getting piratical on deck.
2. Groogaroo
3. Schwartz
4. S.ilver
5. Rex rgis of Ter
6. Grandad1982 - just played and thinking about dinner.
7. Bleys - up now!

The save

 

[Groogaroo]

First of all, well done on taking the initiative on national wonders, I do feel we've neglected specialising our cities, I didn't even realise we hadn't built HE or NE yet.

Well the defying the AP vote was a rather grand move from me, the war with suli was a bummer, but then we are so far ahead of our rivals, who needs any friends. A dom win from here should be a breeze with our tech lead and land advantage. Taking out Qin will put us upto about 62%, so maybe we should focus on an invasion force for taking the chinese lands.

OT - Geez! Scotland is beautiful (which is more than can be said for you! ) I should really pop up there myself one day and check it out... breath taking views!

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I second Gorr's thoughts on China. An army of Riflemen is imperative. I don't know if we can get him in one war, but we can at least maim him. I think we should all just build missionaries/riflemen/siege units for our next turn, which will be used to take out border cities, then make peace. Rinse, repeat. Also, building a couple of gallies first to destroy JC would be awesome.

I used to live in Scotland. Good times...

 

[grandad1982]

Yer the highlands are so nice. I live in the south east and if you buy your ticket early and have a young persons - mine runs out soon - its only about £70. I look better with out a hat on honest!

Lets nail JC and then wreck Qins day!

After that we can start a new SG! Anyone for Monarch?!

Seriously though we could shut down research and building and go for a pure war footing to pump a load of units to destroy Qin. As long as I get to fight some war turns....

 

[S.ilver]

Haven't looked at the save, but I really feel that I don't need to. That was some great play and great reporting grandad!

I'm liking your breakdown of the national wonders. Wat is definitely the target for the Hermitage, and we may want to Confuse it and build a super temple in there as well. Qin must have culture bombed it or something, because I can't see any wonders in that city.

Do we have Cuirassiers already? If we don't, that's actually a good thing, because Knights have flanking against Qin's stack of Trebs.

 

[grandad1982]

We're still at knights. So a few mixed in would be nice. If we are warring then we should drop the sci slider right down and upgrade our city raiders to rifles ASAP. A few cannons wouldn't go amiss either. If we kick Qin off the continent he'll be left on a rubbish island like JC and make easy pickings as and when we want to finish him. Also if we are going for Dom then what about settling those islands to our E?

 

[Bleys]

Got it, but I fear this may be my last round of this game. By the time my turns come around again, I have the feeling we will be in such a commanding position that we should consider starting a new one. We are already VERY close to "cant lose" now.

@ Bleys

You should stop the Taj before its finished - no one else has nationalism yet IIRC - and get everything ready to build our national wonders when the GA starts or shortly after so we can power through.
Also we could use the GA for some civics changes if anyone thinks its worth while. I can't say I was inspired to conemplate it yet!

Cool pics of Scotland, BTW, mate. Are you a Grandfather? You dont look old enough! I am a grandfather at 45 though, so who knows these days, heh.

I will take your advice and interupt the Taj a bit. I also plan to go right into Nationalism and draft a pile of rifles. I will make a note to switch out the turn before it ends as well. I may not even get the GA on my round, but I dont think we can delay too long, we must keep Qin from invading with more Power. If he comes in, it will suck, I hate having AIs DoW when my stack isnt near their attack point. Rifles in most cities will help quite a bit, we have had some nice vertical growth since my last set.

Well played and well reported by everyone, BTW, I would love to do another with you guys, but at least at Prince, and a different map, Continents or Hemispheres, maybe, so we have some naval action. OK, off to play my round, should be done ASAP since I have other games I really want to get back too, this months LHC is a cool map.