Phaedo02- Rage_Against_The_Machine

[Bucephalus]

As we are going through a fairly uneventful period, I've been thinking about our long term strategic options.

It seems clear that our main obstacle to victory is Greece; Egypt has all but collapsed, and will never again pose a serious threat to our ambitions, even assuming that Greece lets them off the hook and it seems likely that China will be assimilated at some future stage - Greece is becoming a monster.

Greece has two opportunities to beat us - Diplomatic or Space Ship.

The one that concerns me most is the former; by definition, in a zero Science game, they will reach Fission first. Even with a pre-build in place, we would be reliant on a successful steal (because we simply cannot assume that they will sell it; we could be at war, or have too little gold for example); all it would take is a failed steal in which we lose our spy, and we would be in dire trouble,

We would need to plant a new spy, then make a successful steal, before they completed the UN.

There are just too many variables for my liking.

I've concluded that there is only one answer to this problem, and that is to eliminate the other Civs before Greece gets Fission.

Willie can go any time that it suits us.

Mursilis would not pose much of a problem once we reach RP's; being on our landmass makes the logistics easy, and we can out-fight the Duke of York, any day.

Hopefully, we would see a MGL or two from that campaign.

Combustion would see us able to transfer our units to China in relative safety, and the rest would be a foregone conclusion.

That would leave just ourselves and Greece - UN problem solved.

To address the Space Race problem, we would need to wait until we have both Fission and Rocketry, so we could see the location of Uranium and Aluminium.

If we get lucky, and they lack one (lacking both is too much to hope for with all their territory), then all we need to do is sit tight and steal our way to Space.

If they have both, clearly we will have to go to war to deprive them of one of them.

I think we are well on course to achieve victory in this game.

Does anyone have any thoughts on any of this?

 

[Norton II]

That about covers it, I think. As for Willie, the best time would probably be when we decided before--after we get industrialization, so we can use our GA to build factories.

 

[Elephantium]

Now that I'm home from work...

Please skip me. I might be able to take it Wednesday or Thursday, but I'm likely going to be too busy to play until then.

 

[CommandoBob]

I will not be able to play until the first of May. I will be paying attention to the game, but don't see a way to play any turns until then.

 

[Bucephalus]

I guess that makes it Phaedo then.

 

[Phaedo]

Wow. I seem to up in quite a few. Ok, I'll need some time to look at it and then post some thoughts.

At first blush, I like the idea of making it a 2 horse race. It makes for some interesting play that I haven't had experience with.

More later

 

[Phaedo]

I apologize for the delay. Work has been a real bear but I'll have more time next week.

So I'm off. Not much to do. Things are in good order from Norton's save. I like the worker builds. Check the dot map to re-familiarize myself with where we want cities.

Move 10 units to Leiden to stop any flip risk (at least until it is hooked up to our borders.

Hit return

IBT Alex wants to re-negotiate silks from us but won't even think about Indust. He can get gems from China so I figure getting him to take ours for 40 gpt is a better call. It's a bit more than he is paying now and I'm sure it's all his gpt. Denying him will only allow him to trade gold with China and won't deny him the tech. It also gives him a lux to demand to precipitate war and War Happiness.

T1 1255AD
Found New Yokohama nd New Shimonoseki (in a slightly different location to catch both fish).
Rail with workers and it looks like Alex is losing cash

IBT China wants ROP, good bye

T2 1260AD
railing and no trade.

IBT Zzzz

T3 1265AD
Rails, water and some MMing. Change the governor in the specialist farms to emphasize food and make that the default for new cities.

IBT Zzzz

T4 1270AD
Rails and no deals

IBT Zzzz

T5 1275AD
Greece is losing 55gpt and we have a deal up for negotion next turn.
Rails and H2O

IBT Zzzz

T6 1280AD
Worker moves and no deals
Found New Matsuyama

IBT Alex wants to re-negotiate and we do as it will keep him in the red. Tech research seems to have stopped (mission accomplished)

T6 1285AD
Rails and H2O
We buy Indust for 7743. He wouldn't go for any kind of GPT for any kind of combination I could think of. He should still be losing about 50gpt.
Change builds to factories as we now have 20 rifles and are 38gpt UU.

IBT Alex re-negotiates for wines

T7 1290AD
Alex is losing 154gpt, but has a bit over 15000 in the bank

IBT Egypt is destroyed. Mao demands furs. We aren't ready for an overseas war and if it helps him stand up to Alex a bit all the better. I'd like to gie him MT for some of his luxes too.
Al finishes Suffrage and starts ToE

T8 1295AD
H2O and rails. Al won't go for anything for Espionage.

IBT Zzzz

T9 1300AD (this is where the even number of turns ends so I'll stop here. We must have got off track at some point)
H2O and rails and stop.

Greece is a concern. It's losing cash and incredibly slow on it's research but has so much in the bank. I suppose the best thing will be to deny them whatever we can and hope they DOW on us. In retrospect, I shouldn't have re-negotiated after getting Indust. Sorry.

Spoiler :

 

[Bucephalus]

OK, I've got it.

I'll post any thoughts that I might have, soon.

Any reason not to play this tonight, if I have time?

 

[Phaedo]

Don't see why not. The farms are in order but some settlers could be rushed. Forget when our deals with Al tun out but it could happen on your turn.

We have 20ish rifles and maybe 30 Cavs. We're ready for a war on our continent if it be Murry or Al coming to us

 

[Bucephalus]

Now we have Industrialization, it's time to initiate our GA, I think.

I know that we planned on using Willie for that purpose, but I'm wondering if it might be more productive to beat up on Mursilis for a while, and do a spot of leader fishing; we have a lot of Elite Cav's - too many for them all to be used against Willie - and enough Rifles to hold him off, particularly once I'd rushed walls in the border cities.

There is even the possibilty that Mursilis might ally Alex, which IMO would be in our interests; with our rep in tatters, the only way we can get gpt deals is as part of a peace treaty, and we desperately need Espionage. A short, phoney war with Alex would give us that opportunity.

Having finished the war with Egypt, Alex will switch back to Demo/ Republic (Demo is my guess) and start to forge ahead with research; he will also get ToE unopposed - we need to start stealing.

In the time that it's taken me to write this, I've convinced myself that Hittites are the better target, so that is my recommendation.

I will refrain from playing until you've all checked in with your own thoughts.

Edit:

I haven't checked the save yet, but if Willie and Mursilis still have a MPP in place, then we have little choice if we want our GA.

 

[Bucephalus]

I've checked the save, and the first thing to report is that Alex has RP's; I think we probably need to accelerate our plans to eliminate our other rivals.

Assuming we reach a concensus on war with Mursilis, I'd like consent to push in to his territory if the opportunity presents itself; if we get an early MGL, I think that would give just such an opportunity.

Also, since Mursilis does not even have Industrilization yet, buying Espionage from the Greeks will cost an arm and a leg, almost three times the cost of a steal; I'm beginning to lean towards Norton's thinking on this - I think maybe it is an acceptable risk to try an Embassy steal, under the circumstances - our GA would let us build the Intelligence Agency pretty quickly too.

If we failed to steal, Alex would probably DOW; in doing so, he would lose our lux's (which would hurt him now he's back in Demo), and we would have enough gold to tie-in a tech to peace, after which stealing would be a win-win situation.

Let me know what you think.

 

[Norton II]

Sounds like a good plan to me. Let's start building some more cavs to replace the ones we're going to lose against Mursilis, not to mention interdicting any forces Alex might land on our continent if the tech steal fails.

 

[Bucephalus]

Sounds like a good plan to me. Let's start building some more cavs to replace the ones we're going to lose against Mursilis, not to mention interdicting any forces Alex might land on our continent if the tech steal fails.

I don't anticipate that we would lose a great deal of Cavs; I would move altogether more slowly than against the Celts. They are defending with Rifles, and would counter attack with Cavs, so I think rushing a stack of Cannon, to move under an Army if we have one - Rifles if we don't - would be the way to go.

Also, all core cities are building factories at present, and I think we should use our GA to finish them and Coal Plants.

I would be surprised if it took less than three sets, to be honest; it will take me at least five turns to absorb the initial Cav rush, and assemble enough Cannon to begin an offensive.

You and Elephantium would get to do the bulk of the fighting, which will no doubt please you after your previous tedious set.

So that's two for war; I think I know Phaedo well enough to assume his approval, so we're just waiting on Elephantium and CBob.

 

[Phaedo]

I'm for it. We have a couple of cannon and rushing can happen pretty quickly. I had forgot about the embassy steal. I think that's a great way to get Alex to declare on us. I think we really need him to declare on us. We can defend effectively enough with cannon and it will hurt him greatly.

 

[Bucephalus]

OK, unless anyone comes up with a compelling argument against it in the next 12 hours, I shall stick it to Mursilis, and try to steal Espionage from Alex.

I don't think defending against Alex would be much of an issue - the AI can't do amphibious invasions; we'll probably get a bit of coastal bombardment, but he'll talk peace soon enough.

 

[Elephantium]

The new war plan seems fine to me.

 

[Bucephalus]

I've played three turns, and it couldn't be much better.

The pre-turn yielded a MGL; I've since taken out two Hittite cities, and I'm driving in to their core.

And turn three saw a safe steal of Espionage.

More to come.....

 

[Phaedo]

Woo hoo! Go Buce!

 

[Bucephalus]

Sorry for the delay; these are slow turns and I'm a bit tight for time.

I'm on turn 7, and Mursilis has folded like a pack of cards - Norton will have 4, maybe 5 mainland cities left to deal with, plus two on an island.

I've built HE, but no more MGL's yet.

Our casualties are light, but China has Salt if we need it for more Cavs.

Our top cities are just finishing Coal Plants, so we can get Intel Agency in 6 turns or so.

I risked another Embassy steal for 'The Corporation'; we have 14 turns of our GA left, and had nothing of real worth to build, so I figured we could use the shields for Stock Ex's, then Wall St. - steal was successful.

I'll be finished tomorrow morning.

 

[Norton II]

Looks like things are going smoothly! I look forward to reading the turnlog tomorrow. At least it sounds like you're leaving some Hittites for me to kill--I haven't done much fighting in this game.