[BTS] Need Help on Monarch

[lymond]

One thing I'd add is that it's unfortunate the spy was not already in Aachen, but it was irrelevant. I know coanda talked about moving extra spy in, but as I said, focus on units. Spies are not going to matter much against Chuck. (I capped him in 1 turn)

You could start sending them to Giggles - who should be next and more potentially dangerous longer term. I would not really build any more spies though.

capture gold should pretty much finish up Rifling for you. I'd grab Chem next when you can for some Frigates which will help later on with bombarding coastal cities and protecting your transports.

(note: watch out for enemy caravels. AIs will attack galleons with caravels, and galleons can lose to them)

Edit: Be careful with promoting units. Combat line you can never go wrong with on mounted units. I saw some pinch and shock units in the stack. Granted you may have needed a Shock promo against Zara for some attack. However, ideally only promote units as you attack and ideally save promos for when needed - this allows you flexibility based on what you are facing and promos give needed health. Pinch is not doing you much good right now and should only be taken if you find yourself facing a gunpowder unit. Even attacking cities with a Musket or two in them, the LBs will usually defend first anyway if you take Pinch. So generally, you are going to go Combat line first usually, only promoting the odd promo when needed.
Also, flanking is not generally recommended as a promo line.

 

[crashmon]

So to confirm
This turn
1) on the north boat, load 3 cuirs (drop a spy) and move it south to join up with other ships
2) Switch civics as advised and move Charlie into cast
3) Fix up cities
4) get gold from others

Next turn
1) Declare war with stack I have
2) Drop stack 1E of Vienna
3) Move ships to get remaining Cuirs
4) Attack Aachan and Vienna

Move spy to Giggles as well

then when reinforcements arrive attack the other cities?

 

[lymond]

Make sure any valid whips are performed before Caste switch. Build culture in Lali...add engineer for 1t pop....gives marble.

Boat near Etruscan can drop off next to Vienna as well next turn.

I noticed this after the fact, but I think you have an empty boat in the big boat stack. Move him back to pick up some guys.

I tried moving spy into Aachen this turn and raised EP slider (but only like 50%...I did not think I'd need that much), but did not have enough for revolt. The spy will get no discount so I"m not sure how much EP you would need there. You can try going 100% EP this turn, or just ignore the idea. He likely will not have any more units there since he can't whip.

Not sure how many spies you have. Focus is on Chuck now but you can dedicate a boat to ferry over some spies to Sumer soon.

 

[lymond]

Another note, don't overcommit on stack movement. What I mean is, from the spot 1E of Vienna, you can attack both Vienna and Aachen. Attack one unit at a time from that spot. The reasoning here - and things may go differently for you...maybe even better - is you may end up with enough dudes to handle not only stray units but move a stack in position for another city with clear roads

 

[crashmon]

did not get time to play today, should have time tomorrow

 

[crashmon]

Turn 185 1250AD

• Conquered Vienna and Aachan
• Lost 6 Cuirs in the attack (that hurt)
  
• reinforcements will land next turn
• GM is on way to rome
• Now in Caste / Bud / Free Market
• Chuck in caste

Spoiler Chuck :

Next two cities will be Prague and Augsburg I think

 

[lymond]

Hmm....seems you lost quite a bit more units than in my test. Not sure why but rng is rng, and Pro LBs are tricky.

Seems you missed the point on the HE build entirely. The idea was to pop borders fast in Lali, which was not done, and catch the overflow from barracks/forge builds into marble boosted HE....oh well.

Cancel gems with Izzy. Trade her pigs for GPT. Trade Gems to Hammy for incense. Corn for Rice with JC fwiw.

Chucks little cat stack may be bothersome but I might move those 5 units 1E to take Prague next turn. At least I had no problem taking it on my test. Chuck capped after that and take out other units, but I had more Curs in my test at this point.

You can switch to Caste (and back to Confused) when Rifling finished. You can't whip anyway now so your Curs will auto-switch to Cavs in cities. I would delay the Cur in Thebes 1t as well so it switches to Cav too - build wealth for 1t or maybe even switch to a Musket so it becomes a Rifle - a few of those would not hurt.

Gilgs some obvious choice next, and not just for relative proximity, but also as he is most potentially dangerous short-term with MT visible.

Naval landing probably best since you can land 2N of Eridu for fork on that city and cap. Eridu has AP. You don't have Hindu now but once you do capture Sumer cities it will come into play for you so keep eye on AP timers, as GIlgs will certainly try to vote for peace.

I think for the most part you need little guidance from this point. Just pay attention to the details each turn and use logic on your attacks and peace deals. Atlhough please do report your progress.

Note: AP timer is currently at 7 turns so may be best to attack the turn the vote goes through. also, 4 vote cycles before election votes, so all AP votes for Resident will likely be for peace if he is at war. Gilgs with 15 cities may be difficult to quick cap...so you will want to hit hard and fast. Possible going for 3 or 4 cities simultaneously., such as Uruk/Eridu/Lagash/Nibru.

With Zara and Chuck capped, you might consider boosting them a bit, especially militarily. Check F5 screen (Sit Rep) for possible opportunities to have vassals embargo enemies as you trade them military techs. Also, note that you can direct a vassals tech choices via diplo dialogue.

Addis and Aksum should be building culture for border pop. Addis on granary. Addis can 1t border pop by switch 1f2H hill to PH mine. Worker near addis should probably be chopping first, then watermills/workshops

Etruscan needs at least 1 worker...run 1 merchant there now.

I think maybe you lose thoughts once you exit the forum to go into the game. Note that it is no issue using ALT-TAB or CTL+Shift+ESC to minimize game and read posts.

Fishman should probably be producing something as well now. Build wealth there until 1t from Rifling. Start a forge then and whip the next turn when you switch to slavery.

 

[crashmon]

And so in the year 1290, looking at the remnants of his army outside the city of Prague, the mighty burger king himself, gathered his robes, kissed Marcie on the cheek (Yuk said Lioness and Lucy, while snoopy looked on from afar)

I will have to surrender people of the Holy Roman Empire, please bring me a double whopper with extra bacon, to fortify me as I go to grovel to the Pharaoh

He approached the tent, and saluted the guard, "I wish to surrender, please bring me to your Pharaoh"

The Guard escorted him to Pharaoh.

Ramesses was pacing up and down, and none of his advisors could calm him... "Your Landsknecht's killed General Lain with less than 8% chance in the battle.... You sir are a PRICK"

I am willing to Vassel to you mighty Pharaoh, I have knowledge of Sumeria, Please do not wipe us out, I will supply your armies with multiple bacon quarter pounders if you will just let us serve you.

So the Holy Roman Empire vasseled into the Egyption State

Spoiler Chuck :

He would not talk to me after I took both Prague and Augsburg. He then attacked my 6 Cuirs + GG in Prague with a stack of 6 Catapults, 4 knights and 4 Landsknecht's. I survived the attack, but lost the GG to a fluke attack. I then moved my reinforcements and destroyed what was left of his stack, and then he finally capitulated....

So lost quite a bit of time here, however have upgraded 6 cuirs to cavs, have more built back in main cities (as now back in Slavery), so when I attack Guilga, I will have cavs, but will be at least 5-6 turns, as I want to go back into caste so I can switch him.

TBH bit annoyed he did not cap after I took Prague, must have just not had enough Cuirs for him to switch.

 

[lymond]

I can't remember exactly my moves, but I was able to cap him after Prague after mopping up some other units, in my test. But I had more units and less bad losses. It's sill not that out of the ordinary. He did have 14 cities, so it wasn't exactly an easy cap. I just had a bit more shock and awe in my playthrough in 2 turns of war.

Things appears to have worked out fairly ok from a culture standpoint with both Zara and BK. I don't think your cities will have much trouble with culture/revolt if I see things correctly. Point is that you may be fine keeping Chuck's cities. His cap ended up moving pretty far away actually.

You may have to go no reli to get Gigs to pleased for caste switcheroo, unless he gets there otherwise.

Couple of quick notes, and then I think you can just do you thing from this point:

1) I'd still like to see you pay closer attention to details with your cities. Bit of sloppiness there and really for some turns now. Check Aksum - what is wrong there? Addis too?

2) Thebes is avoiding growth....not sure why that is ...

3) chopping jungle is fine but maybe lay down a couple of new improvements first, especially in your new HE city which really can rely solely on hammers soon rather than being whipped.

 

[coanda]

Take advantage of your time in Caste System to work on generating a Great Merchant out of Fish Man - that city is already pretty close, and making an effort there could pay off.

Cities which are reasonably safe (like Harar) can build culture to get a border pop before they start on a garrison unit.

You never did switch back to Confucianism, so you aren't benefiting from Theocracy at the moment. Five turns in Confucianism now, then five turns in Buddhism if need be so Gilgamesh will like you enough to adopt Caste System.

Attacking five turns from now should time out about right; that lets your Cuirassiers/Cavalry gather in Pisa, heal a bit, and get on the boats, and lets your spies in Eridu build up their stationary bonus so you'll probably only need ~400 espionage points, maybe less, to revolt the city (one turn at 50% espionage slider would probably do it, although you'll have to save up a little gold for that). Eridu is a very juicy city; Great Lighthouse alone should be worth something like 100 gold per turn. Uruk for Temple of Solomon is the other city you want to be sure to capture; beyond that, whatever cities seem convenient on your way to capitulating him (maybe Lagash and Nibru).

You can get wine in exchange for 10 gold per turn from Hammurabi; you'll be canceling the deal soon enough, but that'd get you an extra ~150 gold first.

Doesn't seem to be a lot of new stuff to cover though; this is the "take what you just did to Charlemagne and repeat it again and again with new victims" phase of the game.

 

[lymond]

Five turns in Confucianism now, then five turns in Buddhism if need be so Gilgamesh will like you enough to adopt Caste System..

Point of clarification here. Gilgs is Hindu, which I don't think crash has at all right now (unless one of captured HRE cities has it, but I think I checked that on the save). So it may have to be No Religion to get Gilgs to Pleased, unless an unbalanced trade will do, but you need a trade of something to switch him to caste and not sure at this point you want to trade that much to him.

I checked Gilgs trades and could not determine yet what he was teching currently.

 

[crashmon]

Thanks both

Yea, I did change to confi, and resaved, but did not repost the save, also once I get the GM to Rome, might run a couple of turns with high espionage points to see if I can get enough to revolt Eridu as well, should have 2 spies in there in a turn or two.

Debating whether to build some Rifles as well, but still don't think they have anything other than seige which can hurt my Cav's
Have a spy on land scouting to see if I can find a stack, I found with Chuck that taking his cities was not enough, it was only when he lost his stack (not much of a stack) he would talk, might need to do something similar with Giggles

Have 2 Galleons on way to Lymond to collect 6 Cav's, they will then rendezvous with southern army gathering in Prague where I have the rest of my ships heading.

Once my captured Charlie cities are out of revolt, will whip one cheap Military unit in each, so I can free up those Cav's in those cities to attack one of Gilga's cities by Land as well.

Going to use Lymond as a gather point for Cav's right now from my core cities.

TBH not sure what to do with Aksum, Addis.. If I want to build culture and also units, then should I just build a couple of cheap theatres. This seems to be fastest way to get culture, and Theatres are really cheap.

Also should I give Zara Astro.... Then he could potentially join in later wars like Spain / Rome...

Have to say you do notice the difference when attacking Protective Civs. His bows hurt alot more than Zara's did

 

[coanda]

GM can get to Rome on the same turn you posted your save. Just unload into Cumae and walk the rest of the way.

A single turn at like 50%, maybe 60 or 70%, espionage would probably get you enough to revolt Eridu, once your spies have had a chance to build up the 5 turns of stationary-spy-bonus. And that's the only city of his it's even marginally worth bothering to revolt. Eridu, non-hilltop Uruk, and 1-3 other non-hilltop cities as necessary to capitulate him. You could even hold off on getting those EPs until you have a chance to glance at Eridu's garrison; if the revolt is only going to save maybe one cavalry, it's not worth spending the commerce on it.

Rifles are pointless. Can't keep up with cavalry, and cavalry will be able to defend themselves just fine - especially given the size of your tech edge. Crossbow garrison units when a city needs someone, as 60H is your cheapest option now.

Odds are with Charlemagne you lost a couple too many units taking his cities due to just plain bad luck if he wouldn't capitulate right away - he got some war success from that, offsetting your war success and making him reluctant to capitulate. Killing his stack worked to tip you over the threshold, but simply taking another city would definitely have worked too. No real need to focus on finding where AIs have a big concentration of units if you aren't worried about them actually hurting you; just keep taking cities until he capitulates, and if the stack comes to you then you can kill it then.

Pull the "garrison" cavs out now. You'll probably be at war with Gilgamesh for a grand total of two turns, which means he won't have time to get any units to those cities. They can stand empty until they're able to make their own garrisons, and waiting 6+ turns before those cavalry even start moving means they won't be able to catch up to the army until maybe Caesar.

Gilgamesh is a little awkward to attack by land, because (as noted) you're really hoping for a 2-turn war. Probably something like 3 galleons unload 2W of Uruk, forking Uruk and Lagash. 3 galleons unload 2N of Eridu, forking Eridu and Uruk and able to move on to threaten Umma if the war goes to turn-3. 2 galleons SW of Eridu, forking Eridu and Nibru. You could bring a few more cavalry up to threaten Nibru by land on turn-2, although since they would be river-crossing attacks you'd probably want to take the top defender or two out with the Eridu/Nibru cavalry first. And you could potentially send a handful of Cavalry off to pick up Larsa on turn-2 as well. But that's all any land-based cavalry will have time to do.

I'd keep trickling out a few more galleons; they give you a lot of tactical flexibility and help make sure you can run very fast wars capturing a bunch of key cities on the second turn. If you start getting too many cavalry / not enough galleons, a lot of those cavalry can't do anything useful but ride along after the army cheering because they can't keep up with the amphibious landings.

Aksum and Addis needed 10 culture for the first border pop, and didn't have it when Lymond said they needed to be building culture. They've got that 10 culture now, and the world is their oyster. The tiles they're working should be shuffled a little (unimproved forest isn't particularly good), but I'd just stick them on building cavalry or wealth.

Aachen is going to be worth a lot of gold when it leaves revolt - it's got +27 gold from Mahabodhi, and it can work almost a dozen fully developed towns. Probably in the range of 70 commerce per turn. While they are usually not worth building, I'd get a Bank in Aachen.

Your wars from here on out should be ~2-turn wars - one turn landing, one turn capturing cities. Maybe 3- or 4-turn wars if you hit a snag. Zara Yaqob can't help with that, because you can't tell him to pre-position his units and the wars will be over before any of his units could arrive. He provides psychological support, helping scare your opponents into capitulating faster, and that's it.

 

[crashmon]

And so in the year 1400, after hearing news that Lagesh had fallen, and rumours that the fleet of Admrial Krikav was close to collecting another large army from Lymond, Giggles finally stopped laughing, and with his upside down Joke face decided he did not want to lose Kesh as well.

He rode his war elephant with the white flag of surrender to the war camp of Pharoah, and saluted the guard, "I wish to surrender, please bring me to your Pharaoh"

The Guard escorted him to Pharaoh.

Ramesses was alone, the advisors taking a little siesta as they wished to see if the Pharaoh had his big boy pants on, and could conduct a war on his own.

"Your Warriors fought well noble Gilgamesh, but unlike Charlie you know when to cut your losses and bow to the superior force, is it that you wish to join the mighty Egyption empire and sacrifice your troops in the upcoming war with Hammy and his Bowmen"

"I do mighty Pharaoh, and I will vassal to you and Join your empire", and with that statement, Sumeria joined the Egyption Empire.

Spoiler Giggles :

Much easier war than Charlie, Cav's vs Bows and Phants much easier than Cuirs vs Knights and Muskets. I delayed launching the war until I had all my ships in place, but then Eridu and Uruk fell 2nd turn, Niku fell 3rd turn, and Lagesh fell 5th Turn after I declared, and then he vasseled.

On now to Hammy, but will get my new stack from Lymond over first before we attack him. The on to Izzy and Rome

 

[crashmon]

Just one thought, Hammy is close to Rome. Once I cap him bulk of my forces will be closer to rome than to Izzy. Might therefore go Rome > Spain, instead of Spain > Rome, but will look at map at that point when its time.

 

[crashmon]

Gilgamesh is a little awkward to attack by land, because (as noted) you're really hoping for a 2-turn war. Probably something like 3 galleons unload 2W of Uruk, forking Uruk and Lagash. 3 galleons unload 2N of Eridu, forking Eridu and Uruk and able to move on to threaten Umma if the war goes to turn-3. 2 galleons SW of Eridu, forking Eridu and Nibru. You could bring a few more cavalry up to threaten Nibru by land on turn-2, although since they would be river-crossing attacks you'd probably want to take the top defender or two out with the Eridu/Nibru cavalry first. And you could potentially send a handful of Cavalry off to pick up Larsa on turn-2 as well. But that's all any land-based cavalry will have time to do..

I'd played the war before I read this, but after my losses vs Charlie, did not want to risk splitting my forces too much. After landing I killed him in 4 turns, which I know is 2 potential turns lost, but ensured that when I attacked, I had enough to get the job done.

 

[coanda]

The awkward part at this point is that your galleons are on the west side of Gilgamesh, they need to be on the east, and it's a non-trivial trip for them to get around. I'm not certain, but it might be faster to go Gilgamesh - Isabella instead of Gilgamesh - Hammurabi just due to saving three or four turns in transit before you start the next war. The general rule is that fast wars are better because as soon as you declare on the AI it starts prioritizing military techs, military units, and sometimes using whips to get a bigger army. Which means every turn that passes makes the eventual victory more costly. But if you have enough cavalry left on the southern continent (not sure without looking at a save) you might be able to do two at once - send 24 cavalry sailing north to Isabella, and use the remaining cavalry in the south to start taking down Hammurabi at the same time.

Last time I glanced at the techs Isabella seemed to be one of the trailing AIs, in which case 24 cavalry when she's not yet to gunpowder would definitely be enough.

 

[crashmon]

Yes I think I have enough in my stack in Lymond to attack Izzy, while my south stack take Hammy.... I'll probably be attacking Hammy on two fronts (north and south from land), taking his two closest cities on turn 1 when I declare, before combining them in his central city near Giggles on turn 2, then marching stack to Bablyon while a small force goes for coastal city. This would give me 5 cities in about 4 turns (as my stack at sea is now going to Izzy).

On Izzy front will just attack Madrid, then I think Barca is inland, and take it from there. While moving my ships to pick up Hammy Stack. The will hit Rome from both sides....

Will look at this later, wife time now

 

[lymond]

When I ask what is wrong with cities I’m not referring to builds. I’m referring to what tiles are being worked. Addis and Aksum were a mess


Not looking at save but I’d still look for opportunities to take out multiple Spanish coastal cities (or cities in general) simultaneously and fork when you can. Not sure why you would change the tactics after just leaning about them and their efficacy.

 

[crashmon]

On Giggles, I did fork, I landed between his two major cities and took them the same turn, and had 6 Cav's coming from south who took a third city turn after... What I did not do was split off a fourth army for Lagesh, I took it with overflow after I took Uruk (ie all the cav's I did not need for Uruk or Eridu, I moved towards Lagesh, but over land).

Izzy is very weak, so will probably look to take all her coastal ones in 1 turn when I am in position, will Invade Hammy from Land only.

Have fixed the tiles for Addis and Aksum, yes they was all over the place