Pirates!

[qwertz]

@Madtown: We won't need to keep too much cities in the later ages. We must win by conquest, so we'll need to look that we don't hit dom. limit. Also I'm unsure if troops on boats can defend cities. I think we should check this out before deciding on the rule change.

 

[Madtown]

Also I'm unsure if troops on boats can defend cities. I think we should check this out before deciding on the rule change.

Just checked in a WB test. You're right, they don't defend.

I could've sworn that I've seen it happen though, maybe it was possible back in vanilla?

 

[Melior Traiano]

So who's watch is it now?

 

[qwertz]

Yena's asked for a skip so it should be Morganknight, but we haven't heared much from him in the last time, so he might need a skip too.
If noone gets it soon I'm up.

 

[Morganknight]

Yena said he couldn't play til Friday and nor could I, but it is past Friday now, so he should be fine.

 

[yena]

Sorry to keep you all waiting for so long. I've played my turns, and the main event was a war against Saladin. As outlined in my previous post, my objective was to take Medina (with AP!), Mecca and Damascus.

It was a bit tougher than I expected since Saladin unfortunately got Frigates a few turns before my attack, but we had a very lucky break in the AP vote. When I attacked Saladin we also DoW on Japan, and the AP vote was stopping the war against Japan. Sure, absolutely, no problem...

The frigates killed four privateers and 2 ship of the line I send out to try and decimate Saladin's fleet, but apart from that we won Medina, Mecca and Damascus with the loss of only 1 grenadier.

I'm stopping here, because I think we need to discuss where to go from here. Saladin is crippled, but he still has too many frigates for comfort. My idea is too take peace for now, rest the troops, send the surviving privateers to Hatty, and rebuild the economy and a strong navy for the next attempt.

I've built some berserkers and upgraded them to CR grenadiers. They are slowly moving towards the killing zone on whatever ship we can spare. Check the F5 screen for more details. The old Aztec land also needs more protection.

Over to Morganknight...

 

[Melior Traiano]

Looks good. The economy is pretty strained, but when UoS & SM come online, things should look a little better. Still, we need SP badly, as distance maintenance is almost 100 gpt right now. Privateers can be redeployed to Egypt & Germany, since those two don't have OB with Saladin, so he can't sink them. I agree that we should make peace with Saladin, build some infrastructure, and gear up for a knockout blow against somebody.

 

[Madtown]

Good set Yena

Here are a few shots for everyone out there to illustrate just how destructive taking a few key cities can be to the enemy.

Spoiler :

GNP

Production

My choice for next victim would be Hatty. Her land is close to our realm and she is now our main rival.

 

[Morganknight]

I will indeed ask for a skip. This coming week is killer. Someone else will make a better warrior anyway.

 

[qwertz]

Saladin is still quite strong, but he has been cripeled enough to leave him alone for a while. His frigates would cause more trouble than they are worth anyway. Agree that Hatty should be the next target; better to take some cities before she get frigates herself.

As I'm the next in the roster I'll take it. I should play it today evening.

P.S.
somehow my PC suddenly decided to cooperate with the yena's save

 

[qwertz]

When I opened the save I noticed few things;

1.

Our number of cities maintance is 7.00, which means we have reached the Conquerer's plateau and the maintance shouldn't be increasing too fast now





2.
We still have no ironworks.

A quick look at domestic advisor suggests that Nidaros would be the best candidate (Paris is building a unit ATM so it has +150%
->Ironworks started in Nidaros.

3.

We have 19 workers. 1 worker/citiy is nice rule, but not on this map.
->I disbanded some of them to save some upkeep


4.
The demographics screen looks very nice

First of all, as agreed, I made peace with Saladin.

I tried to get something more usefull from him, but he didn't want to give away anything.

Blah, blah, blah... I think everyone knows who is the most powerfull civilization of the world, so what is really that great about his work?



Next few turns were mainly used for regrouping our troops, building some more troops and whiping soem infrastructure in our new arab cities.

And than;

And all the world's oil reserves

Fred has no oil and Hatty will lose her only oil on this turn;

Next turn a GS is born; I kept him up for later (see below).
Hieacompolis is also captured. We lost a gren at 80% odds.



Saladind comes with a silly trade offer

Dream on dude.



Next turn Saladin porposes a very interessting AP resolution.

I thought why not and vote yes.


Giza is captured without any looses.


The resolution somehow passes

I didn't think the AP will turn out to be usefull after all.


Next turn we got communism and I stoped my turnset there as there are some points I would like to discuss;

IMO our curent civics are somewhat suboptimal. SP is a must, but also CS, rep (we need constitution for it (sal is willing to give us constitution)), and Nationalhood (saves us about 50 gpt compared to buro) might be good ideas.
Swiching 4 civics would, however, cause 5 turns of anarchy.
My idea is to use the GS and the free GSpy from communism to start a second GA. This will allow us to make the needed civic swiches without loosing the 5 turns.

Our long term golas should be combustion (for better navys) and industrialism(marines), but what should we research next? Physics for the free GS?

The other question is should we just tear down every imrovement we have and build workshops everywhere or are matured towns too nice to be destroyed.

We could also try to get the Kremlin as the rush-buy option could be quite powerfull if we shout down the research after industrialism.

 

[Melior Traiano]

Good work, captain.

Regarding the points of discussion:

The civic swap in a GA sounds good to me, except I would not switch to CS (reasons below). Sci Meth for Constitution + whatever Saladin throws in looks like a reasonable trade. Research Physics for the free GS, then go for Artillery. Conquer as much of Egypt as WW will allow, then attack Arabia again, making sure to capture all their land Oil supplies. With Artillery & controlling all the land-based Oil, we won't even need to tech RR or Combustion to win. Artillery will own Machine Guns & Saladin can't build Destroyers without Fission, but there's no way he's going to make it that far. We could tech to Assembly Line, just in case Saladin makes it as far as Infantry, but we probably don't even need that, either.

I would vote for building the Kremlin, capturing the Pyramids from Fred to run US, and leaving the mature cottages alone. And I also vote for staying with Slavery, because poprushing will still be needed if we don't workshop everything and it's handy for getting something out of the starving citizens in newly conquered cities.

 

[yena]

Well, the game is more or less won by now. Taking the pyramids from Fred sounds like a plan to me. Another vote for keeping slavery. We have more surplus population than hammers, and it is painful to see new cities starve without getting anything useful out of it.

 

[qwertz]

Artillery will own Machine Guns

No it won't; they have the same , machine guns are imune to colateral damage and our artillery the penalty for attacking from the sea. If Saladin gets to RR, I don't see how we can beat him before marines come around.
The other problem is that we'll need rifling quite soon and rifling will obsolate our berserkers, which means we will only have quite limited amount of CR/amphibeous troops.

 

[Melior Traiano]

Artillery get +50% vs Siege Weapons (i.e. Machine Guns), so that cancels out the Amphibious penalty. Machine Guns can't be promoted in the CG line, so I like our chances with CR Artillery vs Combat or Drill Machine Guns. Once we have Artillery, the Artillery units will be the only CR units we can build until Tanks, but what I'm saying is once we have Artillery, we shouldn't even need any other techs, unless somehow Saladin gets to Infantry before we wipe him out. And that's unlikely if we go after his big cities first. The alternative is not going for Artillery, but going for Industrialism instead, by which time I'm sure Saladin will have Infantry & then the key matchup would be our Marines (non-CR) vs his protective Infantry, which is a worse matchup for us than Artillery vs Machine Guns.

 

[yena]

Hey, who's up? Morganknight said he is on a skip all week, so perhaps Melior Traiano should play next (since qwertz played directly after me, rudely pushing him aside ), followed by Madtown?

Rooster:
Madtown
yena
Morganknight - skipped
Melior Traiano
qwertz - just played

 

[qwertz]

Artillery get +50% vs Siege Weapons (i.e. Machine Guns), so that cancels out the Amphibious penalty. Machine Guns can't be promoted in the CG line, so I like our chances with CR Artillery vs Combat or Drill Machine Guns. Once we have Artillery, the Artillery units will be the only CR units we can build until Tanks, but what I'm saying is once we have Artillery, we shouldn't even need any other techs, unless somehow Saladin gets to Infantry before we wipe him out. And that's unlikely if we go after his big cities first. The alternative is not going for Artillery, but going for Industrialism instead, by which time I'm sure Saladin will have Infantry & then the key matchup would be our Marines (non-CR) vs his protective Infantry, which is a worse matchup for us than Artillery vs Machine Guns.

I think I get youre point now



I was after Morganknight in the roster and before Melior Traiano. Now someone of them should be up.

 

[Madtown]

I'll give MT 6 more hours to pick up the save. Otherwise I got's it and will play late tonight/tomorrow.

As for strategy, artillery is a unit i rarely use, prefering to get my collateral dmg. from tanks usually. In this case however, I like MT's plan. We ought to be able to mop up the rest of the world with marines backed up with artillery.

 

[Melior Traiano]

Are you fit to play some turns, Morgan?

 

[Madtown]

Morganknight said he's on skip this week.