Randomly Conquering Monarch 6CC

[grs]

Pre: Cancel all deals with Cyrus, which leads to some health problems. Switch towns to maximise production and stop growth. Our stack closes in on Bactra

1545AD: Chemistry - replacable parts. Sell chemistry to Asoka for economics and to Peter for a war declaration on Cyrus. Sell spices to Asoka for 8gpt and bomb Bactra's defenses to zero. Lose a knight and two elephants killing three longbows, a mace and a musket.

1550AD: Trade gems for wheat from Peter. Persian galleon destroys our fishing boat, we lose our fish. Did you know a galleon blocks all squares around it from beeing worked? Our wounded units pillage the territory around Bactra's ruins, the others move towards Sidon.

1555AD: Lose an elephant on defense against an attacking rifle; another one kills the rifle. Cyrus golden age ends.

1560AD: Decartes is born in Paris. We start a golden age to increase production and to catch up in techs. We get fish from Asoka for rice.

1565AD: Replacable parts - rifling. Sidon is bombarded, but will need more.

1570AD: Sidon's defenses are destroyed. We still need more troops around Sidon before the attack.

1575AD: Alex demands us to stop trading with Asoka - no. We lose a musket, an elephant, a mace and a pike killing a rifle, a longbow and a pike.

1580AD: --

1585AD: Asoka demands we stop trading with Peter - no. We get whales for ivory from Asoka (elephant time is really over now) and nationalism for replacable parts + 300gold from Peter.

1590AD: Rifling - steam power. Sell rifling for constitution + 290gold to Peter - we will need jails soon.

1595AD: Sink a Persian caravel.

1600AD: Our golden age ends.

Our frigate has pillaged some sea improvements. We are soon ready to invade Persia. If possible, we should wipe them out in one go. Expect 2-3 rifles per town.

Save.

 

[knupp715]

Great turn-set GRS. Just one question though...

1575AD: Alex demands us to stop trading with Asoka - no.

When did Alex join the game.

 

[grs]

Great turn-set GRS. Just one question though...



When did Alex join the game.

Ups...it was Peter

 

[Greebley]

Looks like I am up. I got it. I will continue the war to the best of my ability.

 

[Greebley]

----------------------------New entries----------------------------
Turn 230 (1600 AD)

I switched to Military Tradition to get that before steam.

Turn 232 (1610 AD)

Updated some units that had experience.
I have also decided to not go for the closest Persian city first as that is much better defended (did some scouting with my boats)

Turn 235 (1625 AD)
Tech learned: Military Tradition
We landed. Two Catapults attack but do no damage to our rifles.

Turn 236 (1630 AD)

We traded Mil Trad to Peter for Corp and gold. Wasn't sure on this trade, but I figured by the time we got around to fighting Peter they would have this tech anyway.

Turn 237 (1635 AD)
Frigate defeats (4.48/8): Persian Frigate
Frigate defeats (1.28/8): Persian Galleon
Caravel loses to: Persian Galleon (3.36/4)
Galleon defeats (2.40/4): Persian Galleon

The above combat sunk two Galleons full of Persian troops

Turn 238 (1640 AD)
Rifleman defeats (10.08/14): Barbarian Longbowman

Trying to take out a barbarian city. There are 3 longbow.

Grenadier defeats (1.20/12): Persian Rifleman
Grenadier defeats (12.00/12): Persian Rifleman
Grenadier defeats (7.92/12): Persian Rifleman
Razed Pasargadae

We do very well on the attack of Pasargadae and raze it.

Grenadier defeats (0.60/12): Persian Rifleman

A rifle attacks on the IBT.

Also a town immediately replaces the one we razed. It is size 1 with no improvements, so not a big deal.

Peter declares Peace with Persia This means our stack may get bush-whacked. Not sure. We may want to get Peter back into the war if we have something to trade.

Turn 239 (1645 AD)
Rifleman defeats (6.58/14): Barbarian Longbowman

Kill the second longbow in the Barbarian town, but we are too injured to continue.

Turn 240 (1650 AD)

Retreat the Rifle near the Barbarian town to heal. Note that it is hiding under an axe.

Note:
I upgraded a rifle to have "woods defense (took both so moves faster too)". We also should make sure we stay in the woods in case we are attacked by Persia who has a lot of troops. The woods will make the attack very expensive to kill our very large stack.

We can also consider having a second "woods defense" unit.

Built mostly military. We could use some more frigates after the current builds finish. Sinking the enemy is always nice when it can be done. Also most of our troops are on the other island. I did keep back some defense, but I am unsure if it is truly enough. I was building it back up in fact. I figure we can also retreat injured units who can help defend while they heal.

 

[Nad]

Great work grs and Greebley! As we can see from the score, Cyrus is already hurting badly. If we possibly can, we need to get Peter back into the fight too to weaken him as much as Cyrus.

One thought I had...can we build a couple of explorers and ship them onto Persia's continent? If they can hook up with our stack we might be able to do some nasty pillaging of Cyrus' lands. Pillaging a town at this stage will probably net 30g+, so if we pillaged a couple every round, that would be a huge boost to our income. I may not have understood it correctly, but explorers can move, pillage, move every turn right? That would let them move onto a town, pillage it, and retreat to our woodland rifle stack. We could of course repeat this tactic when we take on the other AIs. Thoughts?

Nad
grs
Greebley...just played
goraemon...UP NOW
knupp715...ON DECK

10-15 turns per round, as you deem fit.

 

[grs]

We can also pillage with healing units after the fighting is done.

 

[goraemon]

Well, I continued the war against Cyrus.

Arbela, Persepolis and Susa are now gone.

I got a GE during my turnset and used him to rush Taj Mahal. We're still in GA.

I think Asoka has democracy now and is in emancipation.

We have steam power and steel, got started on democracy.

Our GNP seems quite bad even during GA. so GL to the next players.


View attachment 115198

 

[Greebley]

Good work on clearing out the lower Persian cities. Note that I don't think we necessarily have to wipe out civs. Weakening them enough so they are no longer a threat seems sufficient.

Question is what to do after Persia is weak or gone. Do we move on to our ally Peter? I think the answer is that we have to, otherwise Peter will expand into the Persian lands and become too strong. This would mean little to no break between wars.

The alternative seems to me to be to not hurt Persia as badly so they can reclaim the land with new towns and go for another continent entirely - allowing them to live, but be weak enough we can deal with them later.

I am not sure what is the best choice here, but I do know we shoudn't just go ahead and play something hoping it works - we should come up with a plan of attack and try to follow it. I think what we do next could well determine if we win or lose. Letting Peter grab all of that big island - this is what we need to avoid.

My current feeling is that the best strategy is war with Peter when Persia only has small towns left and try to clear the big continent. After that we always go for the largest enemy - we can wipe out their towns on our and the Russia/Persia continent fairly easily, but also have to take the war to their home continents.

The biggest problem is that soon we will have to do all our own research as the AI becomes angry with us. The guestion is whether we can kill them fast enough that we can stay in the game in terms of tech and power.

Fortunately, there are only 2 civs remaining if we get Persia and Russia, so I feel we have a decent chance.

 

[grs]

My current feeling is that the best strategy is war with Peter when Persia only has small towns left and try to clear the big continent. After that we always go for the largest enemy - we can wipe out their towns on our and the Russia/Persia continent fairly easily, but also have to take the war to their home continents.

I agree with this plan. We have to weaken Cyrus much more before making peace, then we can remove Peter from the island and redeclare on Persia after that. Imho it would be a bad idea to start a war with another island before this one is cleared; it would cost us too much time.

 

[Nad]

knupp715 is up.

I'll have a look at the game situation when I get home tonight before I can comment.

 

[knupp715]

I've got the save.

 

[Nad]

I think our plan has to be cripple and move. Declare war, raze the major cities, make peace and grab concessions, move to the next biggest threat. I agree that we should not kill Persia but let them resettle their lands after crippling them. Then we move on to Peter. After crippling Peter, I would not go back to Cyrus but instead target Asoka. With their major cities razed, we don't have to worry about civs with minor towns that lack buildings and wonders. One thing we should do during this process is pillage lands clean. Make the enemy workers have to build cottages from scratch.

So my vote would be cripple Persia, cripple Russia, cripple India, crpple China Then mop-up. This is the surest way, IMO, of not falling too far behind in tech.

 

[Greebley]

I agree with this plan and the point on pillaging cottages is a very good one. It will take longer to recover the towns and villages than it will the cities.

 

[knupp715]

(1) Thucidydes completes his greatest work...

Moa demands education and I agree. What the heck, might as well improve relations a little so we can trade with somebody for the time being. He goes up to cautious from annoyed.

Paris builds an aqueduct and starts on a Buddhist Temple to help relieve all the angerness. Orleans builds a cavalry and starts on another. New York starts on a granadier and starts on another one. The workers have virtually nothing to do except chop forests. The only problem is, there are almost no forests left on our continent. I check out our finances screen and we are spending 18 gold on unit costs. We have a ton of workers, that can't do anything until railroads (do we even have coal, I don't remember) so I disbanded a few and GPT went from -22 down to -17gpt.

I start pillaging the cottages, farms, and other growth improvements in former Persian lands.

(2) We raze Tarsus this turn with no losses.

IBT: Cyrus strikes back. Our stack that razed Tarsus is attacked by Cyrus's stack o' doom and only our gren and rifle our left wounded in the battlefield.


(3) Moa wants to trade his incense for our ivory. This should help out our happiness problem a lot. I also trade him some cows to rake in 9gpt from him.

(4) Orleans builds a Cavalry and starts on a Cannon. Lyons builds a cannon and starts on another. I raze Sardis to the ground with no losses against unfavorable odds. The RNG is really being nice to me tonight.


(5) Orleans builds a cannon and starts on an aqueduct to help its unhealthiness problem.

(6) Research on democracy completes and we start on railroads.

(7) Our GA ends. New York builds a gren and starts up on a cavalry.

(8) Rheims builds an ironclad and starts on a buddhist temple to help with the unhappiness problem that is spreading throughout our cities.

(9) Our stack is getting ready to take Gordium.

(10) Pedro contacts us and asked for a tech (sorry lost which one) where he would give us his WM and Scientific Method. I wasn't going to agree, but then I threw in Declare war on Cyrus for the heck of it and he agrees! Hopefully he can finish up Cyrus and burn some of his units doing so.

Paris builds a temple and starts on a cavalry. Lyons finishes a cannon and starts on a rifle.

Overview: I didn't move some units this turn, so Nad you have full reign over some ships and the attacking stack next to persia's capital Gordium. He wounded us with a cat in the IBT but we have a ton of promotions so you can use them to heal.





Nad: I made a really decision on turn 10. I put Paris on emphasize growth because it along with some of our other cities are so small, but it wasn't until now that I realized that city is unhappy so the population will be useless.

Once our people are happy again we NEED our cities to grow. This was a huge mistake IMHO that we made this game. We only have 6 cities, so we should have made the most out of each, maximizing growth early, instead Paris was stuck on 10 population for who knows how long, then it grew up to 14 and is now stuck there and can't grow anymore (probably for the length of the game) due to war weariness. There are 2 other cities IIRC that are pretty small too.

I suggest that once the two main Persian cities that are left are razed, that we seek peace immediately with Cyrus. Then we heal our wounded army and immediately launch an offensive on Peter. He will start colonizing former Persia soon which we don't want.

One Last Suggestion: I never raised the luxury slider during my turns. The unhappiness didn't start getting extremely bad until the last couple of turns. If you think too many people are unhappy though, you probably should raise it.

Good Luck and the save:

 

[Nad]

ok, I'm up, will check this out and play probably tomorrow

 

[Nad]

guys, I'm very sorry to delay the game like this but I need a skip this round, RL is hectic, probably wouldn;t be able to play til midweek.

grs...UP NOW
Greebley...ON DECK

 

[grs]

Too late, see out of pocket thread. I will be away from tomorrow till Wednesday and I won't rush it tonight.

 

[Greebley]

That makes me up. It is late tonight so I think I will play tomorrow.

 

[Greebley]

I continued the war against Cyrus taking out two cities. War weariness is pretty bad - the problem with making peace is that Cyrus' remaining city on the continent blocks us from Peter. I think we have to continue until we take it out, IMO. Hopefully, we are close to doing so.

Once we take it out I think we need to declare war on Peter. That may be rough as he may have a number of units to attack us with. Our goal though at first would be to keep him from building new cities followed by actual attack on him. I think we want to try to keep to defensive terrain if we can so he pays a high cost for attacking us. I would also keep near the shore so that we can save some troops if we do get attacked and badly hurt (i.e. keep boats nearby when declaring war).

We attacked the big city of Gordium in 1770 and lost 3 Cats and 2 Cannon. We won the rest of the battles.

In 1800 AD we razed Samaria which was a newer size 2 city. No losses.

For research we are going for the key tech of Biology.