Passive agressive Vassal domination

[Mutineer]

It is my undestanding that for island 3 tie rule do not apply. One can settler just 1 tie away if cities on different islands.

Reims? I am not sure. disband it? Or take it.

I was looking and can not deside. We can keep it and it will have some usefull ties, but not mach. I do not know, any opinions?

 

[slowcar]

i'll play tomorrow and take a look.
i don't have the best overview as i skipped the game over easter but i think we are in pretty good shape.

the bad diplomacy started with the worker-stealing and its hard to improve a starting modifier of -4 as the +1 for long time of peace and the +1 for open borders does not come in. Probably an error not to talk about it and try to improve relations with somebody as a team, i built hatty up as a friend as i had the opinion that it would be enough to team up with her.
Not being spiritual it is hard to comply to the AIs wishes without strangling the economy due to revolting.

I agree on taking Huyana down next, some free land for us to settle and maybe some good space for Ghengis, he needs to become a bit stronger for us to utilize.
The other countries are good war targets, then, as Ghengis will raze all cities with them being too far away and we can resettle the free space.
More important we can probably beat the enemy army in the field thus leaving only the garrisons for Ghengis.

I don't think we should attack Cyrus, he'll probably vassalize to hatty as they are neighbours, better to go after the french or arabs when we have finished Huayana.

Tech-wise i'd take chemistry, the partheon is not that important as we had quite a few GPs and early grenadiers would open up some opportunities for our vassal maybe.
Representation followed by Democracy looks good, SoL would be nice to have and emancipation would cripple our enemies.

Due to the lacking ability of the AI to wage wars i'd say we should try to build some cultural pressure as our second attacking option and to grab much land without having to settle all the bad spots.

 

[Tatran]

I don't think we should attack Cyrus, he'll probably vassalize to hatty as they are neighbours,

Don't worry, all leaders are annoyed with Hatshepsut.
But there's a chance Huayna will vassalize to Mehmed, Cyrus or Louis.

 

[slowcar]

finished my play two rounds short as we should discuss options. Some reporting first though:

Reims joins our illustrous empire. We keep it as it can work some good tiles (copper/gems) and has confuzianism (+1g due to the shrine).

Ghengis captures Cuzco and razes it. I thought he'd probably keep it, start a settler nearby to slave next round
(sorry about the german texts, i switched language 1 turn later)

Gunpowder is in, i trade it with hatty for guilds, world map and all her gold (30...), a fair deal as they are worth nearly the same.
Trade guilds to Ghengis for Optics for him to be able to build Knights.
He is quite low on money, we should give him some when chemistry comes in.

Our first scientist is burned on printing press which drops from 25 to 5 turns.
Our research does really suck but i hope it'll recover with representation.
Cyrus demands nationalism. Nothing to save our relation anyhow, no way.

I close borders with Luis as he as a 7 units settling party walking our lands.
AND he settled cuzcos place 1 round after Ghengis burnt it down, at least saved 3 pop as i did not slave the settler

One of the unspeakable incan cities is burned down by Ghengis.
Huayana capitulates to Louis who subsequently declares on us.

Our second scientist is burned on chemistry, 7 of 25 rounds left.
Ghengis razes chartres (the french town in incaland) and our waiting settler founds the city of Satricum on the ruins of Cuzco (copper, 2 seafood, pigs, fresh water, harbor, incense -> super city )

the french "front": Two small pillaging parties, 1 in our borders and another going for Rheims, nothing our Praets can not deal with.
Chemistry in in 4 rounds, a Great Person also due in 4 rounds, 40% for a GS.

Options:
We can go to merkantilism (hatty and mehmed have it, cyrus has free market so we lose only mongol traderoutes) and nationhood. Would require to trade an expensive tech for banking though (4k beakers vs 2k beakers) which would be very bad. All techs we lead are monopoly techs and i'd like to deny hatty free speechas long as possible and keep the tech level low.
We have grenadiers in 4 turns and i think burning our pop on useless muskets does us no good.

As our golden age starts next turn (Taj Mahal completes) i stop here nontheless as Mutineer wrote his opinion to draft muskets.

I think we should gift Ghengis a good share of our praets together with a few 100g for him to upgrade to greandiers. Be sure to give them city raider promotions beforehand! As even gunpowder is unknown to all countries but our own he should be able to lay waste on the french cities - if we want this. France is pretty weak on the military side and has no horses - and even if he gets gunpowder muskets are no match for CR3 grenadiers.

I think Cyrus would be a better target but we should use the current situation. Build more universities to enable Oxford (would help our research a lot) and use our golden age to get money for upgrades.
Research-wise we could go for constitution - and let Ghengis research banking (did think about this after saving so get him to switch right away), revolt to merkantilism and representation and follow up with democracy. As we slow the AIs tech-pace down emancipation will have quite some impact on them, especially if they go for rifles first as most AIs do.

We could also bribe hatty, she would give baking, 20g and her world map (omg!!! we need this map!!! ) and war with louis in exchange for printing press. I don't think it's needed though. War with Mehmed would cost all techs and all gold, too much of a price. War with cyrus would allow her to expand her emipre, nothing we want to support.

I think i rarely had a game with a low research like this (140 beakers/turn at break even (40%)). But we are tech leader!
In my opinion the game develops quite well, lets see how Ghengis can do with a few grenadiers on his playground.

 

[Mutineer]

Hmm.. I need to look on save.
Useally it is not good idea to draft or revolt in golden age time.
Draft reduce population and revolt wasting turns.

I useall max effect of golden age by MM all cities maximise production and commetce effect of golden age.

It should let as to research representation fast.

But after GA we should revolt to Nationalism/mercantenilism and then representation and draft muskets. Right now praet is a magority of our defence force and Muskets are better then praets in open. For Open ground we do not need city rider promotions and we can not attack cities, Chengis can.

We need some pillaging and defenc eforce to replace Praet and Muskest is a fast, cheap solution.

We really do not have production to build Greens naturally. I would better use production for city improvements/more wanders.

 

[Mutineer]

One more thin, do not forget to give Praets city rider promotions befor gifting them to Chengis.

 

[slowcar]

Sure, but we can easily afford to upgrade a couple of praets to grenadiers with 1-2 rounds of running cash in the GA.
With strength 12 they are far stronger then the units Louis can field, mostly longbows, muskets (once he researches gunpowder) and maces.
I think if we make 2x4 grenadiers, one of them medic, we can control his land and pillage him to death.

The CR-praets go to Ghengis, thats for sure

 

[Mutineer]

Chengis has big bonus to upgrade. As far as I remember Monarch AI upgrade cost is 25% of human player. It is better for him to spend money and for as to get Representation to sort out our research.
Representation with Mercantenilism and SoL in future = our research problems solved.

 

[Mutineer]

Roster.


Mutineer -
Slowcar -
shyuhe- Up now
Tatran -
negyvenketto -

 

[shyuhe]

ok, will play later after some more discussion.

So it sounds like the basic idea is GA -> max production/commerce (and build infra). After GA, swap to nationalism/merc, draft muskets while gifting CR praets to Genghis (+ chemistry - does he have it yet?). By the way, how is Genghis' land situation?

In the meantime, fend off Louis while trying to mount a pillaging party. Let me know if I'm forgetting anything here.

 

[slowcar]

We are by far bigger then him but i don't know the exact numbers oomh.
We'll get chemistry in 4 rounds so Ghengis does not have it yet.
Be sure to let Ghengis research banking.

Imo it is enough if we upgrade ~4 praets, we don't need to revolt into nationhood which would cost us the +100% culture as well as +2c from towns.

 

[shyuhe]

nationalism has the benefit that we can draft muskets and gift them to Khan. He'll then upgrade them into grenadiers for dirt cheap. I don't think this is a terrible idea (as long as Khan has the money to afford upgrades).

 

[Tatran]

Musketman do not upgrade to grenadier.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

I do not undestand that policy, why make everyone hate as and remove any opportunities for trade. We suppous to work together and continue each other strategies, not work agains each other.
I Suspect this is the reason for Capac refusing to surrender with the reason I never saw. His reason now:" You must be Joking!"
I have no idea what it mean. It could be mean: Every one in the world hated you, or he think he is too week. I do not know.

I think that phrase comes from not having done enough damage to the enemy. From my experience I find it mostly in phony wars when you've never killed a unit and the war has raged on long enough to make contact again, if you mouse over the capitulation suggestion then you'll see it, the best way to get them is to take a city, but that's against your variant right?

 

[Mutineer]

It could be the case that Khan lost to many units raising Capac cities and Capac percieve that he winning the war?

I do not know, because I never had this kind of responce befor.

 

[Mutineer]

We are by far bigger then him but i don't know the exact numbers oomh.
We'll get chemistry in 4 rounds so Ghengis does not have it yet.
Be sure to let Ghengis research banking.

Imo it is enough if we upgrade ~4 praets, we don't need to revolt into nationhood which would cost us the +100% culture as well as +2c from towns.

Our game Is more oriented into direction of managing Khan to figth for as and help him to figth effeciently on field.
After we got a Vassal valie of culture diminished, but still nice.

Ability to get bunch of units for as and Khan to burn is better in my eyes then +2C from 1-2 towns we have and 100% culture.

WE will switch back to free speach after we finish round of drafting.

Well, in my opinion anyway.

 

[shyuhe]

An interesting set. Khan will probably raze any cities that he comes across at this point, as I continued to gift him maces and praets for him to upgrade into grenadiers (where does he get all the cash to do this! ). He has the most power out of any civ in the game now The next player should probably build our military up a little bit as... it's a tad lacking as a result of the gifting. Constitution and banking are both in, and I've gifted gunpowder/engineering/chemistry to Khan:

I revolted into representation/nationhood/mercantilism. Nationhood may be overkill but we don't have many towns and the culture is killing Khan's land (we need to make sure he stays above 50% original). Plus, it was 3 turns revolt with or without the nationhood. We can start drafting some muskets in our crappier cities to boost our power now.

Mehmed had his hands full at the start of the set, and this is what he was up to:

Capac is down to one city but he still thinks "surely you must be joking" about capitulation (he renounced his vassalage to Louis obviously).

Now that Mehmed is after Louis, I imagine it is only a matter of time before Louis will capitulate to Mehmed - potentially triggering another war? I think this game is mostly on cruise at this point, as our research is fine now and we have a killer vassal going after everybody for us. It's a pity that you have to ship the units halfway across the continent before he'll assemble them into a SOD and send them back west, but I think his military upkeep is keeping him from wanting to keep any distant cities

 

[shyuhe]

WE will switch back to free speach after we finish round of drafting.

Well, in my opinion anyway.

I'm not so sure it'll be worth switching at that point... Unless we're going to cottage up (unlikely), I think we should just stay in nationhood for the rest of the game. Rifle drafting will be up shortly (like 20-30 turns at our current rate) and it takes 2 turns to change just one civic.

 

[Mutineer]

You probably right, switch not needed, we just need military.
I look on Khan powergraph. LoL

He should be happy, his warmondering soul.

Yee, just draft Muskets to replace all this praet we gift Khan and be happy.
Mahmed will probably burn Franch trops for as, even better.

 

[shyuhe]

the only thing I'd be worried about is the chain vassalizing. If Louis vassalizes to Mehmed, who vassalizes to Cyrus or Hatty, who then vassalizes to the other... But I guess if our military is big enough, the others (Cyrus/Hatty) won't dare take the vassals to enter a war against us.

If I understand the rules of vassalage correctly:

civ A and B are at war. A and C are at peace and B and C are also at peace. If B vassalizes to C, C automatically declares war on A, right?