NO-1: Tree huggers of the world unite

[Quechua]

double post but I may as well condense my opinions on our goals here:

-found new city, connect and improve pigs
-Deal with the barb galleys and replace workboat, fogbust the north ice and east coast
-Hope Nap will let us trade for Math in the next turn or two (he thinks too few know it?), else trade for Math with Charlie before we switch to Hindu
-Gift Ragnar writing and see if a Alpha-Math bribe will work
-Complete Monarchy and use that to trade for Monotheism, it will come a little quicker with the gold in Nijmegen at size 3, and when the capital grows back from whip. A scientist or two in Hague is ok if it wont overtake priest.
-Trading Math for OR with Ramesses is ok too
-Bribe Ragnar if we couldn't already
-switch to OR and maybe HR if you think the anarchy is worth it, build some missionaries for Ragnar and our new cities
-Build swords in Utrecht, Rotterdam. Barracks in Nij. Archers in the capital is ok to free up our axeman garrisons.
-switch to Construction, NoChildren will complete it
-build settler for silk city, it can use the rice to get up and running.

 

[Quechua]

Napoleon has 3 of 4 cities Hindu - he's staying Hindu. Ragnar has 2 cities, which is why I agree a missionary (or maybe 2) would be smart. Just because they can backstab us at pleased doesn't make it at all likely.

 

[Refar]

Played till Turn 180. Did not really pay attention in the beginning what turn i took it. Turns out it was just 12 Turns - felt longer.
But anyway, recent development suggests to stop here.

Settled Delft.

Traded with rameses for OR. Its a bit uneven (And we did not even got "Fair Trade Diplo+" ). But i want to start building those missionaries sooner rather than later.

The plan was to run OR to build missionaries but not adopt religion just yet. But Ragnar came with a offer we could not refuse. Choosing between -1 for sending him away and +1 for adopting (And + for same religion)... I accepted.

While i was at it also gifted Ragnar a Clam, hoping for "Supplied ressources +". Did not get it yet

Christianity has been founded in a distant land.
The water supply of trecht was poisoned by Charlie (I think - i do not know how many Esp-Points he had at us before, but he had awful few after).

Seeing Ragnar attacking a Barb City, i kept our Axe there. Ang got lucky - he softened the defender but had to wait one turn.
I took the city before him, giving us 100 Gold and 2 Workers.
In a somewhat odd move i liberated the City to Ragnar however. I think it was the right thing to do - it is awfully far away, it will get Boarder Tansion with Rameses. And liberating it gave us +1 Diplo raising Ragnar to Pleased.
Feels a bit odd still.

I used Writing and Monotheism to bribe Ragnar into closing boarders with Ramesses. Ramesses had a trail of Jewish Missionaries heading east. The last thing we want is him spreading Judaism to Ragnar.
It still Spread in one of Ragnars cities.

Naps took out that Barb Galley fo us. I have a fogbuster in place on thet ice-cap, so i felt it is safe to re-built the Fishnets.

With the money from that Barb city i was able to complete Monarchy a bit sooner.

Ragnar however Refused to go to war against Charlemagen (or whoever else) for Monarchy + ABC + Priesthood.
While beeing Pleased.
I hate him.

Delfts Boarders Popped on turn 178 as well. Ragnar got "-1 Boarder Tensions" right away, but is still pleased.

On Turn 180 bad Karma Stuck Ragnar-Ramesses Relations.

On the very same turn, Ragnar switched to "Hands Full". (I kept checking him out every turn, to see if he change his mind on the bribe...)

He is plesed to us and just had that event with Ramesses (Tho no one is showing a worst enemy... Either they changed the mechnic, or that "Worst Enemy Display" of 3.17 is brocken.)

I hope he is going for Ramesses, but there is no way to be really sure.
I dispatched 2 Newly built axes to the south. But it is a long way... And maybe we want to send more just in case ?

We have 2 Missionaries on the way to Ragnar, 3rd beeing finished.

Naps still hugs on Math - i guess hes going for Hanging Gardens.

 

[Quechua]

Well it's a shame Ragnar forced us to switch to Hindu before we could get Math, but you made the right decision there. I think it's very likely he decided to go after Ramesses, but of course it would be smart to send extra defenders south. Our power did slip a little in the last few turns (military >> missionaries imo), that's the only thing that makes me a little nervous. But if he is after us that's just very bad luck.

Are you sure the Jewish missionaries weren't Justinian's? I'd rather not isolate Egypt since they are willing to trade even if we have different religion. But if Ragnar has to attack someone other than Charlie, Egypt is a good choice.

I like your handling of the barb city, I would've razed it I think, but you got a diplo point out of the deal.

I hate to say it, but the plan I was pushing did not work. We had to switch to Hindu too early, isolating ourselves before we could trade, and Ragnar got his hands full before we had enough to bribe him with. I'd like to think if we were luckier it would've been a good plan. Getting Math was really a key step. It may be worth considering switching to no religion temporarily to at least pick up Math from Charlie or Justinian.

I am going to be busy the next few days so I may not be able to comment here, so no more ranting from me thankfully....

 

[Refar]

Are you sure the Jewish missionaries weren't Justinian's? I'd rather not isolate Egypt since they are willing to trade even if we have different religion. But if Ragnar has to attack someone other than Charlie, Egypt is a good choice.

I can't be 100% sure what exactly spread Judaism to that one city - i did not had ithe city itself under observation - it might have been sponataneous spread as well.
However, the missionaries i seen were Ramesses. And Ragnar only had OB with Ramesses and Naps.

 

[Quechua]

Well I did have some time right now, so here are some more detailed thoughts.

We want to sell Poly to Wang, I don't care about the diplo hit at this point. (incidentally Wang poisoned us not Charlie). Wait a turn to see if he's stockpiling gold, we can easily get over 100 for it.

I'm not sure what Nap's problem is, if he was building wonder I think it would say 'we have our reasons.' If the situation improves we want to trade Alpha for Math with him, or Monarchy-Math, Alpha-Math with Justinian or Charlie respectively. Note that Justinian and Ramesses exchanged Alpha for Math, no huge deal but I would've rather held on to that.

Rotterdam really needs to make use of the whip, it can be stacked, the food cap for the city is at size 8 and we have excess happiness. We need axes and spears (Ragnar has horses and HR) for the south just in case. We have 1 spear already.

On the other hand let's not use Hague for production/whipping and grow it on coastal tiles, capping off with some scientists.

Currency and Calendar priorities, stockpile gold for awhile. Construction still priority of course, but without Ragnar throwing his stacks at Charlie, I'm more inclined to delay war now. I think either Currency or Construction are good next techs.

 

[Tatran]

also i will be OOP until monday, i might be able to come with some input but most likely i will too busy...

Roster:
NoChildren
Tatran
Quechua
Refar

We'll wait.
I had some serious hardware trouble and have to reinstall everything.

 

[NoChildren]

ok, just read up on the report and it seems like i am up. haven't checked the save yet.
we got a bit unlucky there with everything, but i still think we're in a decent position.

I am home from work with the fever so I should be able to play later today, i just have to muster the energy.

since i haven't seen the save yet. i'm guessing a bit here on our plan, but building swords while researching towards construction to take out charly, am i right?

 

[NoChildren]

ok, so i checked the save and it seems we don't have a military worthy of the name. we are building some missionaries, are they to be sent to ragnar to keep him hindu?

i agree with a war with charly at this stage isn't as good if ragnar goes after ramessess instead. so i guess i will go for currency and then calendar to get ou economy in shape, beacause it's a horrible sight.

anything else i should think of?

 

[Tatran]

I had a look at the save.
At least 3 more Hindu missionaries have to go to the Vikings.
There's a lot of green between Jelling and Maastricht, we could found another city in that area.
Stupid Charly has founded Vienna 1 tile too low, it misses the gold. That city needs to go IMHO.

 

[Quechua]

My vote is for military over missionaries. I don't see the urgent need to build more. I do see an urgent need to bring up our power to match hostile AIs or even defend from a possible backstab.

 

[Refar]

i think too - if we dump those that are on they way to ragnar already we should be able to ensure him staying Hindu for now.

 

[Tatran]

Maybe, I've should have written a "very quick look".

 

[Refar]

I sent them on GO-TO to his boarder so they are easy to miss. Should be no problem - once they are there they will report back for duty

 

[NoChildren]

turn 180: sell poly to wang kon for 80 gold
turn 182: Ragnar declares. On us!!!
start a bunch of cities on military builds, wish i knew what kind of troops to expect. Justinian is willing to trade maths for monarchy, i'm inclined to do it, i really want to get to construction now!
also i give Nappy alpha, medi and poly to declare on ragnar, not that i think he will be of much assistance, but there is no way i want to have a two-front war.
turn 184: still no stack from ragnar visible, i can't understand why he declared... Although i must say that his powergraph is growing more rapidly than ours. [i was going to illustrate this with a picture, but it got lost]
turn 185: I use one of the missionaries intended for Ragnar in Utrecht.
turn 186: maybe we've built to many workers, I have a hard time finding work for them nowadays, all these forests...
turn 189: Enemies at the gates, i promote two axes to combat1.

How i wish my spears would have made it there by now, espiscially since There seems to be chariot and a horse archer in the second stack. I change the tiles in Delft to make it grow next turn and change production to a spearman which can be whipped next turn.
turn 190: of course we lost both battles.

I stop playing here, i prefer keeping war-sets shorter and i guess i'm the player least suited to play during a war we didn't start ourselves, i'm more the peaceful builder type who doesn't like to bring out the whip to create an army.

some notes:
nappy, wang and charly has construction, they are however unwilling to trade.
Wang also has 100 gold which i think we should trade for with monotheism.
We can whip a spear in Delft, i say we have to.
Amsterdam has grown unhappy, so a change to heridetery rule might be in place.
There is a settler at the silk/rice location, but i didn't build the city cause i don't want to hurt our economy any more at the moment.
also i apologize if this wasn't the best turnset, i feel a little dizzy from having a fever.

 

[Refar]

Wow, what a Jerk that Ragnar is. We were really nice to him

 

[Quechua]

If I understand the mechanics of declaring war right, we had better than 90% chance for him to declare on someone else.

We need to decide how far we want to take this war. I'd rather go on the offensive eventually to get something out of this bad luck. If we don't raze any cities he will be back to pleased when we end it. But I'm inclined to raze Roskilde.

I have lots of smaller points to make, but I'll offer to swap with Tatran if he can't play soon. I have today and tomorrow off of work, but I'll busy for the rest of the week.

Thanks for playing NoChildren even though you were sick.

 

[Tatran]

@Quechua
Go ahead.

I agree to get as much as we can before ww starts to hit us bad.

 

[Quechua]

Ok thanks, I'll play in 12 hours or so I think.

I plan to switch out of Hindu to get Construction sooner. Rotterdam will be whipped like crazy. The capital will switch to production over food. I wasn't thrilled to see a scientist being worked, if our bad luck continues and we don't get a shrine.... I think I'm going to use the settler on the nearer coastal city. Some other things I'm forgetting, I'll post again before I play I think.

 

[Tatran]

Just an idea I had for some time, but never tested.
Capture as much Viking cities as we can.
If we want to improve relations with ragnar again we can always liberate his cities. Those relation modifiers are permanent.