Pirates!

[Morganknight]

Actually, I only had about three turns left in my set anyway, so I'll just pass the ball.

222> Saladin offers us Wine for Elephants. Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of...Wine? Sure, the happiness can only help our current military accelleration.

We trade Currency and 30g to Saladin for Calendar and build Roskilde to hook up the Silk and notice a sliver of yellow to the West. I divert our Galley to investigate and find Hatshepsut of the Egyptians.

224> We finish Compass and start on Optics.

226> AP elections are held and Saladin wins.

232> Toku offers us 130g for Polytheism. We like money, so I give it to him.

233> We finish researching Optics and begin researching Engineering, en route to Chemistry. I upgrade our Triremes to Caravels. We get Monarchy from the Egyptians.

237> A Great Engineer has been born in our capitol. Our invasion fleet is poised to strike into France next turn and our population reels under the crack of the taskmasters whip. Yarr!

 

[Morganknight]

I just realized I am a dumbass.

And I wanted to say it before anyone else did. After posting my save, I decided I would go ahead and load the game and try the attack on Rheims just for fun. Alas, I could not declare war. Apparantly, when I gave Napoleon the Clams he demanded the year before, it locked us into a 10 year peace treaty.

I am such a noob. Please accept my apologies. I hope I haven't ruined the game...

6 turns left in a 10 yr treaty...

 

[qwertz]

so let's hunt some french

I'm also quite unsure what to do with the GE;
-what about the pyramids? sre they still available?
-Moai in Paris?
-Manually researching Engeneering and building Notre Dame? How does the thing work on the archipelago man?
-saving him up to found mining inc. in 1000 years? not sure if we'll ever get another one.

 

[qwertz]

@Morganknight: no problem, I doubt we'll lose the game because of 6 turns

 

[Melior Traiano]

Darn, that's too bad. But this delay brings up another idea to me. Maybe we should switch targets to Japan.

Pros:

1. Tokyo's Dyes will come online as soon as the city comes out of resistance.
2. Tokyo's culture cuts Birka off from the rest of the empire. Taking Tokyo will bring both cities' production to bear on the war vs France.
3. Tokugawa has no Longbows yet, so the capture of Tokyo should be a cakewalk for our Berserks & pick up some valuable XP for CR2.
4. Tokugawa only has 3 cities. He will almost certainly become Saladin's vassal at some point. We'll want to take Tokyo before then.
5. If we find out where Tokugawa's other two cities are, we might wipe him out before he ever gets Longbows.

Cons:

1. Being locked into war against Japan will put our forces in a bad position to defend against France. We will need more Caravels to ensure we can take out any invasion fleet from Nappy.
2. Tokugawa might capitulate to Saladin while at war with us & if folks aren't using Bhruic's patch, that will bring Saladin into war against us, which we don't want to happen.

Not sure what other people think, but I think we should take Tokyo & try to get a quick peace, then go after Nappy. If we don't press Tokugawa too hard, I don't think he'll capitulate to Saladin.

 

[qwertz]

good piont Melior Traiano. I think I'll wait a bit with my set so we can discuss the point.

 

[yena]

We could certainly need the dye and experience, so I'm not opposed to a short war against Japan.

 

[Madtown]

If we can protect ourselves form Louis while we go after Toku, then by all means.

For using the GE, I like either Mids, parthenon in our capital, or G.Library (if it hasn't already been built and we can get Literature in time).

 

[Melior Traiano]

Madtown brings up an interesting possibility. Took a peek at the save & saw that the Great Library is still available, we can research Literature in 4 turns and rush it with the GE. GL might be our only shot to generate any GS's to bulb toward Liberalism. We can't afford to make scientists out of the mines because we need the production & GL has built in +GS points we can't match otherwise anyway. I don't think we should give up on Lib by any means as we're teching pretty well relative to the known AIs & if we pop a scientist or two, I like our chances of being first.

 

[qwertz]

Now this was an interessting turnset;


so, after nearly 5000 years of peace the world will see war for the first time

We attacked Toku...

...won the battle...

...and got peace on the next turn

I voted NO, but it doesn't rally matter as Sladin has the monopoly anyway.
Actually this isn't that bad at all, particularly as we don't even know where his cities are.

On the same turn we finished literature, rushed TGL...

...and continiued with engineering

As soon as our fleet got in position we DOWed Napoleon

Rheims has fallen on the first turn on war.


On the same turn we met HC, who has enough on his hands right now

As HC is usually quite peacefull, I guess he isn't dowing anyone, but got dowed by the myseterious 7th civilization (Monty???)

Few turns later we attacked Orleans:

Here we lost our first 2 bersakers because of the damned lbows.
We also got an interesting random event, which isn't going to help us much ATM:

Paris was too strongly defended and we had no chance capturing it. So I moved our troops north to protect Orleans. A large part of our navy got killed by the French warships which are in Paris ATM.
We also menaged to kill some more french troops and got a GG who created a super-medic bersaker.

Now our troops are sitting at Orleans-Paris island, too weak to attack, too strong to give up. Some trebs are on their way and with their suport it might be possible to capture Paris, otherwise the best we can do is wait for Napoleon to accept the peace.

BTW saladin made a vote to give Tokyo back to Toku, I had to defy it and now we have another 5in some cities.
I guess I know who's our next targed after Napoleon.

 

[Madtown]

Got it. Nice set Qwertz, looks like some good head knocking.

One issue, you mention that we have some trebs on the way to France. I can't find them anywhere, and when I look at the F5 screen, it shows only one.

The +5 from defying the resolution really hurts. All of our cities are , many are so pissed that they will starve down to 1-3 pop. I'm not sure how to handle this as IIRC whipping only adds to the time duration of the penalty. Anyone know how long this lasts?

Nappy will give peace right now for Mono + chump change. I don't think it is worth it.

What say ye?

 

[Melior Traiano]

I think (am not positive) that the return city to rightful owner votes stop if we get 50% of the pop in Tokyo to be Viking. Which means whip all the Japanese citizens to build culture buildings & regrow into Viking culture.

 

[Melior Traiano]

Forgot to mention this on the last little note, good work leading our glorious army to their first victories, qwertz.

 

[Melior Traiano]

Only cities with Hinduism are getting the "world considers you a villain" anger. We can't undo religion spreads, but we could mitigate it a little by converting. We can also trade for Saladin's Wines with our Deer, which is doing nothing for us with our issues. Hatty is also willing to trade Spices for any number of things. I think the best way to get out of our Tokyo predicament is to get a monastery & library up ASAP while whipping away some pop. Then regrow while Viking culture takes hold. Hopefully when the city gets to 50% Viking, Saladin can't call that annoying vote anymore.

 

[qwertz]

IIRC votig for a resolution that passes removes the penalty. So just voteing yes for the next resoltuin should do the trick. We should also try to get some culture buildings up there ASAP. Whiping out Toku might also be an idea.
It's possible we have only one treb, I didn't check it when I was writing the report and it was also getting a bit late here.
But 1 treb is better than no trebs as we can use it to remove the culutre defece (no restriction about bombarding a city from land in the rules), load our army at a ship and attack.



BTW, I won't be around next week, so I'll need a skip or two.

And the rooster:
Madtown (UP)
Melior Traiano (on deck)
yena
Morganknight
qwertz

 

[yena]

If we can't make any progress we'd better take peace for 10 turns or so and later return with enough trebs to finish the job. It should give us some time to sort out the unhappiness problem as well. At least the dyes should come online soon.

 

[Melior Traiano]

I don't think we have any WW because our cities have low pop. The is due mostly to whip anger & world villainy. Stopping the war won't make a difference.

 

[Madtown]

Playing now, report in a few hours.

 

[Madtown]

Our empire is not happy. Just to give you an idea of how bad things are, here are some city shots and the domestic advisor panel.

Spoiler :

1120 AD:

I notice that Nappy’s navy has disappeared from Paris. I also realize that with only one treb and 5 healthy berserkers, we won’t be taking any more French cities for at least 10 turns. We are also experiencing 1-2 of WW. I decide to make peace and take the best offer.

Spoiler :

1130 AD:

Paper comes in and I choose drama (4 turns) for culture slider and theater .

Chance of revolt in Rheims is 9.34%.

Spoiler :

At least it can’t flip back to the French, only go into disorder. Nothing we can do about it because we’re pirates and don’t like sedentary city life. Also, ships don’t affect the chance to revolt, as far as I can tell.

1150 AD:

French revolt in Orleans…

Spoiler :

I’m going to make a variant change suggestion and say that units who are loaded in the cargo of ships should be allowed in cities. Think of them as the pirate crews of the ships docked in port.

We also get the “tragic mining accident” event near Nidaros. I pay the 25 to rebuild.

I just now notice that we have some spare berserkers lounging around on various islands. 2 near Nidaros, and 1 up by Birka. In the future, please make a comment about where you are stashing units so that they don’t get lost. Or better yet, wake them up at the end of the turnset.

1180 AD:

Hatty offers theology and gold for CS. I say no way.

Spoiler :

Also Drama is finished. I choose Education next.

1200 AD:

Islam is founded in Kufah (Arabia).

Also, maintenance is killing us.

Spoiler :

1220 AD:

Huayna Capac asks us to adopt HR. We don’t have representation and 1 happy is 1 happy, so I say yes.

Spoiler :

1230 AD:
Islam spreads to Jelling.

Our forces are prepared at Orleans.

Spoiler :

I’m going to stop here and hand off the save because we have a very important decision to make (and I don't have time to finish later). If I counted correctly, there will be another AP vote next turn. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is another “return Tokyo to Japan” vote. How do we proceed?

I would normally suggest adopting Hinduism to double our voting power, but I just revolted to HR a couple turns earlier. Sorry, might have been . I think I should've adopted Hindu first turn of my set.

Also, our troops are ready to invade France this turn. I have woken all of the stacks up, along with one spare ‘zerk residing on the northern island of Birka. Our navy may be a bit lacking on caravel protection, but short of waiting 10-15 more turns we can’t help that. It’s up to the team if we want to gamble and attack.

Finally, we are going to pop another GP in 2 turns in Nidaros, probably a scientist or GM.

 

[Melior Traiano]

I've got the save & will probably get to playing out my turns tomorrow evening (possibly), but most likely Sunday morning. Some general comments on the state of the empire, so to speak:

1. We're under or at the happy cap in all cities but one. Good job getting the under control, Madtown.
   
2. The turn counters for religious conversion and civic changes are independent, so you can change one right after the other, just not both in the same turn if not Spiritual. I would have probably swapped to OR as well in anticipation of building infrastructure after French War II in a 2-for-1 civic swap, or building + buildings to keep WW under control, but we'll make do, as we can play with the Culture slider now.
   
3. We're OK on ground troop strength, at least for taking Paris, except for one detail. There are 6 ground units with no Galley transport. Three Galley builds are currently underway & I will hurry them along ASAP.
   
4. Notice Courthouses being built or queued for various cities. I think Markets are better choices if we're going to bother building something to bolster finances. In addition to the commerce boost, Markets give us +3 with the resources we have already. But the map is too hammer-poor to make switching those builds worth the extra wait, so I'll let the Courthouse builds be.
   
5. There are only 2 Caravels escorting our Galley stack, with a third exploring Saladin's islands. I think the explorer Caravel is more useful on Galley escort duties than exploration & will recall it back to our home islands. I'd hate to lose boatloads of ground troops if Nappy decides to challenge our fleet with his own.
   
6. A Galley is on goto to Roskilde, apparently to unload a Berserk, while our lone Spearman is still fogbusting south of Haithabu as near as I can figure. I am thinking of redeploying the Spearman to garrison Roskilde and then turning the Galley back around to join our forces near Orleans. Both the Galley and Berserk will serve better purposes in French War II.
   
7. Our friend the Scout is still around & doing nothing for us except costing upkeep. I'm thinking of deleting him.

I don't mean to come across as being critical of anyone's decisions, I'm just outlining changes I think I would make when I take my turns. I think overall we're in good shape to take over much or all of France, consolidate territorial gains, and completely crush anyone we want who isn't named Saladin come the age of Astronomy.