PH17: pholkhero and the Holy Grail

so, after my remark to Tally, i only ended up playing 10 turns owing to several decisions that need to be made.

First, I finished off HBR, Mono and Priesthood to leave open the Monarchy option, and I went with Construction next, but am building up $$$.

Took this deal:
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We got Tycho Brahe.
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Idk what he can bulb but i think an academy or settling may work in the short term. However, depending on what he can bulb, we coudl compare that to the Tech Screen (see below)

We're not wealthy
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and we reached 500,000 pholks:
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Here's the tech screen:
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Izzy won't talk to us yet, but maybe we could get monarchy. Also, if we put a couple turns into Const, maybe KK will help us out??

roster:
pholkhero >> just played
fox >> UP NOW??
nocho >> on deck?
mc red
talamane
ozbenno >> skipped for the near-term
 

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Nice to see a half million pholks in the empire :)
We should get a nice discount on research of Construction and it may become tradable as we start researching as you said.
 
The GS would bulb the all important Sailing right now, so I think we can safely opt for the academy. :)

Tech-wise maybe we should go for CoL so that next GS can bulb us philo.

Getting military out will be a good idea to do something about our power rating and in case Izzy would show up with some units. Do we still have plans for attacking HC in the short to medium term? Don't have a clue whether that would be feasible. :)

Unless GF shows up before, I'll play during the weekend.
 
If an academy, we have to decide what city.

Settling would give us nine beakers base (IIRC) x library x academy in Moscow = a lot of beakers.

Since we are cottaging Moscow heavily, i would opt for settling.

But i am a newb. :cry:
 
yeah...i thought academy but wanted to make sure.

also, i'm holding a settler, out by st pete...forgot to mention that. don't know if we want to settle yet though.

finally, let's get some military (swords and spears) to take out that barb city. nice fishing village to run some scientists.

edit: nocho ~ that's fine re: fox
 
Took a closer look at the save.

I totally missed Moscow already has an academy... Talamane alluded to that, now I understand! :) So I think settling would indeed be best, that must be 6*1.75=10.5 beakers extra, a good investment.

Research wise, I propose .... Drama! Drama also opens up philosophy (it's meditation + either CoL or Drama), it's a tech nobody knows so represents trade value and is cheaper than CoL. St Pete can be configured to get a new GS in 15 turns, that's about the time Drama takes so that would fit nicely for the philo bulb. The advantage of going through CoL is that we can build courthouses sooner, but Qin has it already. Thoughts?

Meanwhile of course keep our eyes open to get monarchy, construction and CoL in trade, if possible. Anyhow, after 15 turns with drama+philo we should really have enough bargaining power to get us some good techs in trade.

If we are to settle with the current settler, I would propose 2N of Moscow's rice. First it can share that rice with Moscow, the capital currently has more food than it really needs. Second it has 6 riverside grasslands for a nice cottage city and some hills for production capability. I'd leave those sheep for the barb city once we capture it.

Then I see we have SoZ 1 turn from completion in Novgorod. I guess we're hoping for the failure money? It would really help out to get some key techs sooner.

For the rest I guess it's a question of beefing up our military a bit. A bunch of horse archers mainly, I'd say, we're not building stables for our swordsmen to sleep in! Don't know if we can really afford to capture that barb city yet, especially if we settle the settler. Maybe just keep some military close by in case another AI is making moves against it, but postpone its capture until we're close enough to CoL.

Any input welcome! :)
 
Drama sounds good and military close to the barb city.
I think settle the helper city near moscow as suggested.
 
Sorry for being so cryptic in my comment about the 2nd GS, pholks. I had our first GS build an academy in Moscow.

I guess we get SoZ. I was hoping QSH would build the damn thing, but hey, that should get Izzy to the talking stage sooner, LOL.
 
Played until drama and philo were in.

On the interturn whip the stable in Moscow, set research to drama, settle the GS in Moscow and hire two scientists in St Petersburg.

T157 We found Yaroslavl'. Don't forget the accent.
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T158 HC captures our barb city. Didn't see his units coming out of the fog :smoke:. But maybe not much could have been done about it anyway.
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T161 Make this deal with HC. At this moment Kublai didn't find aesthetics for monarchy a good deal. He lacked poly, so I thought if I make this deal, maybe next turn we can do aesth+poly for monarchy. Next turn he had aesthetics somehow, grr. Anyway, sailing increased our gpt by 4, should have gotten it earlier. Trade. If we were more experienced immortal players we would have thought about that earlier maybe. :)
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T169 Drama is in. Set slider to 0 and research to currency. GS will be there next turn.

T170 GS is born in St Petersburg. Fire all scientists. Bulb philosophy and we get the Tao holy place in Rostov. Stop here with the rest of units left to move.

We are still at war with Izzy, while our former buddies have signed peace with her. No sign of her units yet. She wants a tech for peace, we can do that as any of those techs is known by all others.

Here's the tech picture. Qin takes drama for monarchy straight up. I suggest we do that. I don't get why we can't trade philo to him, as it is clearly in his "can research" department (he has CoL, while nobody else has). Next turn maybe?? Or do you have to go through the same path towards the tech to be able to trade it (we went drama, he has CoL)??
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There's a barb city to our south west that we might want to try and take out, we are getting some horse archers online. It's got 2 deer and horses but has a lot of tundra. A 6th city should be gotten somehow... Can be HC's cities as well of course! :D

By the way, until now I've been avoiding finishing SoZ. Still rather have the cash.

And a save.
 

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I think i'm up so this is a got it.
Couldn't get on site today for some reason.
Will play in a couple of days but post some thoughts first.
 
good turns nocho ~ sorry i've been OOP ~ was laid up in hospital.

perhaps KK was about to research Aesthetics and didn't want to trade. would make sense since the AI can't trade the same turn it gets a tech.

2 deers gives an awful lot of food...might be nice to run some scientists there. we also need to start getting ready for some smashy-smashy if we're still aiming for a conquest/dom win.
 
Lurky: Hey everyone! Just read through the game so far, looks tense, looks interesting!

I'm surprised I didn't notice this thread earlier, but I've been living in a hole for the last . . . month. Or so. But anyway, I'm always a fan of suicidal (game) plans, and since you're down a player or two, I was wondering if I could join in, or maybe sign up as an alternate. Never played at Immortal before, though, but how hard can it be? :rolleyes:

The religion situation is also interesting. It's always fun when you might sink or swim due to diplomacy (or lack thereof . . . or on the AI's whims).

@pholkhero: I hope that you're healthy. Still, it would take more than a crippling disease or injury to keep one away from Civ, right?
 
I hope things are not too bad Pholk and it was something routine.
I am going to look at game tonight.
I noticed we are out of religion. Shouldn't we just decide to be KK's buddy and go Budhism. We are taking on HC soon enough, Izzy hates us, and Qin seems a non entity for now.
The problem with KK of course is that he happily will attack at pleased and is easily bribed.

whosit:
From my perspective another player would be great.
 
Get well, pholk!

Whosit, I'd gladly have you on board! We're down 2 guys atm (unless GF comes back in action) and not the least experienced ones at that.

Never played at Immortal before, though, but how hard can it be? :rolleyes:
Hey, that's not true! You didn't forget this glorious victory, did you? :)

@mc-red: I'm a bit undecided on the religious thing, can't even remember if it actually spread to us. Maybe we can wait for somebody to ask us to convert for extra diplo points? But feel free to convert if you consider it beneficial...
 
Hey, that's not true! You didn't forget this glorious victory, did you? :)

Oops, I guess I did! Still, we had a Financial Civ on a high-seas archipelago map. Not quite the same biscuit here!

I'll take an actual look at the save later today so I can come up with a better-informed opinion, but I get the impression that the two major concerns are: Economic and diplomatic. I'm no money-wiz, but maybe I'll have a flash of insight? Or maybe I'm just feeling too confident in my own abilities since I pulled out of a financial nose-dive in one of my single-player games (but it was on Monarch).

As fer religious changing, I think it might be too risky to wait for a demand. The extra points would be nice, but an earlier conversion would allow the shared religion benefits to rack up faster. The real question is how to get Khan to Friendly, if it's even possible.
 
Hi Pholk's looking for some consensus.

I took peace with Izzy for aesthetics and sent our Tao missionary to St Pete's to give it a culture point. St Petes. just completed axe do I build monastry there? or its just all units all the time now.

I haven't played further feels like this is an important juncture. :think:

We don't have budhism and are very vulnerable to dogpile if KK doesn't restart hostilities with Isabella.

KK will trade Drama for construction now.

Once he has Drama he can demand Philo which would be a bummer. I suggest a trade with him sooner than later hopefully including and Izzy DOW.

I spotted KK sending a couple of units one with CR2 promo's over to the southern barb city.
Do we follow along and take out what is a fairly crappy city and hopefully get some XP points.
Do we ignore the barbs and focus on HC.
:scan:
 
I'm looking at the save, so I'll toss in a few comments.

Most of the cities are close to their happy caps, but they can all be stagnated when that time comes. I wonder, should Moscow run its 2 Scientists? Unit costs are already hurting, so I imagine that we'll end up pushing the slider even further down. Or should we try to stagnate to maximize production in our cities because we're pushing for war?

We currently do not have any Buddhist cities, so we can't make that conversion yet. Only two of Khan's cities have Buddhism, so I think that, if we made a concentrated effort, we could get him to go Taoist, but I'm not sure that that would be the best use of resources. Just throwing it out as an option, though.

War-wise, what's the plan? Going after Capac seems like it might yield the best dividends. His border cities are right up against our culture, but they are on hills. Taking Tiwanaku seems especially important because it would grant us two happiness resources (gold, which the city is unfortunately settled on top of, and sugar that already has a plantation.

If we attack Inca, I feel like a two-pronged strike might be best. The main force goes for Tiwanaku, while another strikes Huamanga. I think we'll want a large mounted force for two reasons: Flanking. Both cities are on hills and will have at least one Archer. Lacking siege, a hit-and-run seems like the best bet. Second, both cities can be reached on the first turn of war by 2-move units. Well, Huamanga could be hit by 1-move units, so the second force should probably include most of our slower troops.

We would want to put roads right up to the border. If we can get both towns on the first turn, obviously Capac can't reinforce them. I think that's important since both are on hills and would be tougher to take. Not sure if we would want to keep Huamanga, though, since it doesn't have much to recommend itself aside from being on a hill.

Hmm . . . indulge me a bit further. Strike Force Tiwanaku, ideally, should have, say, 6 Horse Archers, and a couple of Archers and an Axeman for back-up, and to secure the town once it is captured. Strike Force Huamanga should have any other Horse Archers left over, our Chariots, and a couple of Axemen and an Archer to secure the hill. Once both cities are captured/razed, we can combine our forces and march on Cuzco. That's my plan.

As of next turn, we will have 4 Horse Archers, so we'll want at least two more for SFT, maybe one or two for SFH. We have two old Chariots for SFH. We're a bit short on Axemen and the moment, and we'll want to build 2-3 fresh Archers for the attack, (or maybe toss in a Swordsman or two).

Statue of Zeus: So it's being held onto for cash. Probably best, but if we finished it, would it act as any kind of deterrence against people declaring on us?

Lastly: Our war should be planned to be over very quickly. Any cities we capture will drain us financially, despite whatever riches we plunder. Hopefully, we'll have Currency in hand, but I imagine a long period of economic rebuilding will be required after war.

OK, hopefully my plan isn't too out there. If nothing else, it's just what I would do, so take it with however many grains of salt you like.

Edit 'cuz mc-red posted: I wouldn't do a Monastery just because the science slider is so low, I don't think that 10% will make a difference. I think we want to get our units ready ASAP (composition roughly along my suggestion, perhaps) to get the war started and finished quickly. Hmm, if you can really get Construction for Drama, that might be nice. War Elephants and/or Catapults would greatly aid the war effort, BUT we can probably make it with a mounted army at first. If you can then bribe him into war with Spain . . . that might be worth it, though we'd probably want to try and wait as long as is reasonably possible so that we're ready for our own war, too. Wouldn't do for him to make peace just as we are ready to declare, right?
 
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