Rat 09 - going for conquest

[Xarathas]

Turn 0 - Surveyed the lands. Sold a cow to Saladin for 6 gold to help our Econ (at -2 & 80% science now). Ardea seems a bit too lightly defended for a border city with no cultural border buffer. In case the Egyptians decides to sneak attack it, it could very well fall in one turn.
Wow.. war weariness is god awful.

I take it we're saving the Artist for a golden age?

Turn 1 - Moved the scouting stack of 2 knights to the hill south. Notices a much bigger yet similarly defended city named St. Petersburg and decide to change course. The settler inside the city provides extra incentive

Moving our main army towards st. petersburg, knights are pillaging as I go since we can only move as fast as our catapults. Extra war funds is always good.

Turn 2 - Same, main army now combined with the scouting knights on a hill next to St. Petersburg.

IBT - main army catapulted. Uh, Peter settled a city 3 steps NWish of St. Petersburg along our borders... We'll get this after with the rest of our attacking troops.


Turn 3 - Pillage/Heal/Bombard

Our caravel discovers Peter's caravel going NW up the coast.. it may be interruptive of our ferrying. Which is fine I guess, since we're pretty much done sifting the last of our units over. I left a few that we popped out on the mainland just in case. When a bunch of AI nations have galleons and some of our coastal cities are still defended by a single pikemen and archer, it kind of worries me.

Turn 4 -

Rifling -> Astronomy, no brainer here.

Cumae will start pumping out rifles ot replace those archers of ours on the mainland.

Peter's Caravels upgrades into Frigates! Guess we need to start watching out for Russian Grenadiers and galleons full of troops. Oi.

Michael Faraday born in Alexandria. Gonna ship him to Rome. Smolensk's troops both upgraded to Grenadiers (ugh). Idealy I'd heal one more turn before St. Petersburg, but I guess I'll have to push for razing it this turn before they upgrade the mace in there, too.

St. Petersburg goes up in flames, our soldiers loot a grand total of 211 gold in the process. Our only casualty is a lone CD2 upgraded catapult. Catapult and Musketeer nearby sighted.. army regroups and braces for impact.

Our caravel discovers the English Capital.

Move (Mini)Expedition Force #2 near Smolensk.

Moscow is well defended.

IBT - Catapulted again.

Egyptian border expands, and moves our main army stack one square NW (right next to smolensk). Sweet, saves me a move.

Turn 5 -

Faraday dropped off at Mainland. Galley will probably die this turn, but I don't really mind. We'll be making Galleons soon, and gold should be saved to upgrade elite units.

Smolensk Razed. Casualty: 1 Praetorian (the anti-archer one, pointless to keep now), and 1 CD2 upgraded catapult.

I considered peace.. but nah, decided to blitz Yekatinberg while we're at it. Shouldn't take that many more turns. It'll get rid of a nice chunk of cultural borders so that we don't end up with another Ardea.

IBT - Yup, Galley dead.

Turn 6 - I march on towards Yekatinberg with our army. Everyone moves, missing a leg, missing an arm, don't matter. Speed is of the essence! Reinforcements moves in from the north. Settler prepped and ready to go.

Our first fresh Riflemen Graduated from Cumae Academy. Retiring the 4000 year old archers as they come.

Academy Constructed in Rome.

IBT - Frigates pillaging our fishing boats.. nothing we can do at the moment.... Astronomy in a few turns.

Turn 7 - Army poised to take Yekatinberg.

That Frigate up north.. is actually a Frigate with 2 galleon full of troops, looks to be headed for the lightly defended Alexandria. We will have to raze Yekatinberg next turn and sue for peace it looks like. I reroute our settler escorts to Alexandria just in case.

Turn 8 -

Yekatingberg Razed. Casualty: 1 Knight.. the one with anti melee mixed in with other upgrades. Was the obvious choice for a throw-away unit.

Peace established with Peter, but he refused to give us even the cheapest tech We did get his world map, however.

Velitrae founded, in the midpoint of Old Yekatinberg and Old Smolensk. Decent spot, and covers great ground. I suggest running 2 artists until borders pop twice.

Turn 9 -

Nothing much, just rerouted our expedition forces to temporary coastal defense. They're split up, but you can find them within (or en route to) cities on that continent. I left the remaining Praetorian with CR 1-2-3 unupgraded, since depending on the situation it might be better for him to become a grenadier or a rifle.

Also want to note that we should start making lumbermills (or just chop them down and make cottages) on our remaining forests. I like lumbermills for the most part, so I started putting them on just about all of the forests I run by.

Turn 10 - Nice and relaxing turn, nothing special.

Good luck Rat! Sorry about the delay.

 

[ThERat]

Good luck Rat! Sorry about the delay.

It's okay...and it was worth the wait, at taking out 2 big Russian cities, they are surely gassed now.
I can see we can run 80% science, thats a great thing considering such a big empire.
But, when I saw London and Moskow, we really have some heavy fighting ahead of us...

Hopefully we can soon strike Egypt and then take out the rest of Russia, which leaves us to start thinking of other wars. It looks like a long tough slog...
By the way, Frederick and Victoria didn't found any religion, we should try and convert them with missionaries to get some allies for the coming wars. This would help a lot.


Roster:
ThERat - up
Dimy - on deck
Greebley -
Xarathas -

Thrar - on extended skip

 

[ThERat]

save

Pre-Turn
sell Egyot our WM for 80 gold, we need it to get at them
swap Rome to rifle, again bank do not get us so much if we run high science

get astronomy, go for sci methods since Frederick doesn't have that

1. 1730AD
upgrade a galley so we can transport those missionaries around

2. 1735AD
assemble our forces in the south, I am hoping that Egypt will burn their units on ours

3. 1740AD
keep the forces there but we need more and better units IMHO

4. 1745AD
2 missionaries done

5. 1750AD
send off a galleon with 3 missionaries on board

IT we get sci method, go for biology and more growth

6. 1755AD
we do have plenty of oil

7. 1760AD
nothing much

8. 1765AD
Mansu Musa is running away knowing too many techs

9. 1770AD
first observatory is online

10. 1775AD
land all 3 missionaries in Germany and spot infantry in Hamburg
we get a Great engineer and could start the GA, which I suggest
we have a stack of 4 rifles, 8 knights and 5 cats in the south, next player to judge whether that is enough

I have to admit that i am a little lost in this game. We neither have the capacity to keep up with research nor do we have the capacity to take on others (maybe except Egypt and Russia) since their units are so much better...maybe someone can enlighten me how we win this game

 

[Xarathas]

We really need to find a city to focus on science and stick the Oxford U in it. Though, since we're going for conquest it might be too late (by the time we catch up in tech it might be near or at spaceship time). However, we really need to try. Other option would be to beeline for industrialism and hope for the best.

Our next war target (off continent) will have to be Mansa Musa... which could be a tough one. Depending on how fortified he is. We gotta start warring the people from the top down. Perhaps someone want to scout him out a bit with the caravels. Even if the war doesn't get much done, at least it'll slow him down in tech quite a bit. I found that whenever I war the AI, their tech'ing slows down quite a bit more than mine.

The other big problem here is that the 3 top AIs all share the same religion.. so naturally they're trading with each other and won't go to war. I don't know if it's possible (someone will have to do a count), but we may want to try to focus our missionaries on Victoria (or Frederick, or both eventually). If we can somehow convert them to a different religion than buddhism, it may trigger a few wars (or at least stop trading.. hopefully).

 

[Dimy]

Are all victory conditions enabled? Then we should fear the spaceship I hate that victory condition. But I agree with Xarathas, we should find a way to take the AI from the top down.

Oh I'll probably do my turns tomorrow, but maybe if I find the time do them today.

 

[Dimy]

Turn 0 1775 AD:
Starting our Golden Age with the great people in Rome. Now making +20 Gold at 80% science. Going to save up some money.

Turn 1 1780 AD:
Sign Open Borders with Saladin
Convert Hamburg and Berlin to Confucanism, will use remaining Missionary to explore around a bit.

Turn 2 1785 AD:
Observatory build in Rome and Neopolis, starting Missionaries. Frigate completed in Arpinum and starting on Observatory.

Turn 3 1790 AD:
Biology discovered, start researching Education. More discovery in Germany by our Missionary…Germans have Infantry already. We’re dragging behind in technology…

Turn 6 1805 AD:
Frederick wants to trade Coal for Gold, agreed. We also trade him Biology for Divine Right, Philosophy, World map and 40 Gold. Education discovered, next is Economics. I sell Printing Press to Hatshepsut for 170 Gold and Silk to Peter for +3 Gold/turn. As we have the complete map of the eastern continent our missionary can stop his scouting duties…but he fails to spread Confucanism in Munich…two new Missionaries are enroute to Germany. We moved up to number 1 in score again after our trades.

Turn 8 1815 AD:
Economics discovered, going for Physics..Frederick doesn’t have it yet, so maybe we can trade with him if we discover it first of course. I change our economy civic from Mercantalism to Free Market. Our Golden Age has finished, still making 12 Gold/turn with 80% science!

Turn 9 1820 AD:
Victoria calls, wants Open Borders… I agree. Apparently Peter is at war with Hatshepsut…he asks us to join the war, but for now I tell him to piss off.
Sweet… now with Free Market we’re making +46 Gold at 80% science. I increase science to 90% and are now losing 18 Gold/turn…but we have 790 Gold on the bank, so that’s not too bad. Physics due in 4 turns.

Turn 10 1825 AD:
Another Missionary fails in Munich! … and in Frankfurt… We need to keep trying though, Frederick is friendly with us and willing to adopt Confucanism once enough of his cities are converted.

 

[Dimy]

After playing my turns and evaluating our situation I think we're in pretty good shape... I intentionally kept 10 turns of peace to build on our economy and science rate, and as I was using our Golden Age I didnt want WW to spoil the effects. During the Golden Age I focused mainly on building Economy and Science improvements. I got a few techs of Frederick who totally loves us now, so that's one ally we could use in the war against Mansa Musa. I think we can convert Elisabeth and Victoria as well...so keep those Missionaries going. Just now Peter started a war against Egypt...so maybe we can profit from that. I didn't add any more military units to the stack in Ardea mentioned by ThERat, but I did move two settlers in that city to claim land once we destroyed some more cities. I think it's save to join Peter in the war against Egypt now, we're in pretty good financial shape.

We're doing pretty good in the Info Screen as you can see . I don't think it's impossible to catch up with Mansa Musa... He's only a few more techs up now. And if we can trade some more techs with Frederick it's gonna look even brighter. So...no despair! We can still do this...

 

[Xarathas]

Nice set of turns.

Yup, we have a fightin' chance. Although, my main concern is not so much as to whether or not we can catch up in tech.. it's whether or not we can kill everyone before spaceships start happenin'.

If possible, we definately need to convert both frederick and Elizabeth to our (or anything not Mansa's) religion. The reason is two-fold.

1) If possible, we need to drag BOTH Elizabeth and Frederick into war with Mansa Musa. If we let one of them sit quietly as we war, they will most certainly go on a tech surge compared to us. For now, let's just concentrate on Frederick, then move on after we get him converted (and solidified as a convert! very important).

2) After we're done with Mansa Musa, the next in line is going to be either Frederick or elizabeth... and we can't really be sure of which at this point. Hence, we should just make sure that they don't somehow end up ganging up on us Whether or not we can make them war each other will have to come later.

 

[ThERat]

Roster:
ThERat
Dimy
Greebley - up
Xarathas - on deck

Thrar - on extended skip


agree with those plans, let's convert those guys and yes, use the opportunity to wipe out Egypt now.

 

[Greebley]

Ok, I got it.

 

[Xarathas]

One thing we need to do.. is to make a navy while we wipe out Egyptians. We can't wait until after we're done, since making a navy will take a good deal of time considering that only coastal cities can make them and they tend to have crap production (like Alexandria, Whaling station, etc).

I have a feeling.. that we're going to have to resort to nukes eventually in this game. By the time we take out (or prune) Mansa Musa, more likely than not Frederick or Isabella will have started (or completed) the Apollo program. Oversea warfare takes forever (especially since we haven't even made a navy).

That's the best way I can think of to halt spaceship construction Go to war, nuke the production cities. They can do the same to us, but I don't think the AI's programmed to pick out production cities over commerce cities. Not to mention that we have twice the cities they got. Trading nukes won't bother me any. Plus, we can go 100% tax and suffrage rush nukes, something that I'm pretty sure the AI won't do. Think of it this way. If all of our 8 or so decent~good production cities are dedicated to making nukes, and we run 100% tax, by the time the 5th or 6th turn comes around, we should be getting 2 nukes per turn without much problem. There's NO WAY the AI can compete with that. Once the cities are nuked, their pop is likely halved, which means that they're working half the tiles.. and a good portion of those tiles will have fallout, too! If that doesn't put a damper in their spaceship production, nothing will

This needs to be done quick, though. Once they get bomb shelters and SDI it won't be nearly as effective. We will have a small (guessing.. at most 20~30 turns) window of opportunity and we will have to use it well. We should probably plan our techs carefully once we get industrialism.

 

[Greebley]

I played to 1850. My plan is to declare war on Egypt this turn (hopefully her units are tied up with Peter. She has made 2 demands with I refused.

We do have several towns to build boats with. I am building up Frigates.

If we later took war to Mansa, we may be able to pillage. It might be worth a shot.

 

[Greebley]

Argh - Killed my log.

In any case we took out an Egyptian town in the war. Several of our towns are very unhappy at this. I too am beginning to dislike the WW model - too agressive with too few countermeasures. It is probably the greatest weakness of Civ4.

We got electricity and traded it for some other techs and better relations. Mansa however is at least 5 techs above us: Steam, Rails, Combustion, Fission, and Communism are know (we can see steam, fission, communism and he can trade Oil).

Next player check out the cities. I would like to know what you think the best thing to do with them is.

Finally, I chose Mil Tradition, but se can go for Something else as we have put nothing towards it. Mil Trad will give us the second continent (we can take out Egypt and Russia faster). It probably doesn't help against Mansa though.

I personally don't know the game well enough to win from here.

 

[vmxa]

I used Police State -50% WW, Nationhood and build barracks everywhere to get +2 happy faces.

Mt. Rushmore -25% WW

Try to get Notre Dame if pangea +1 happy al cities on continent.

Start slapping up jails in the bigger cities it works out to about 7.5% WW.

Of course as many luxs as you can get and culture slider.

 

[ThERat]

Roster:
ThERat - on deck
Dimy -
Greebley -
Xarathas - up

Thrar - on extended skip

I checked the save, and I have to say this is a bit ridiculous really

the unhappiness caused by WW and emancipation are hard to handle. of course, there are nice suggestions like the one from vmxa...only issue here is we are several techs away from those like facism and don't have democracy...
It's not as if we wouldn't change if we could, but there are NO civics for us currently to address this.

Something needs to be fixed here. And by the way the suggestion to get jails in about every town is no solution, we only fall behind in the game even further. I guess we will not be able to win this game unless we get some very fast units and victories.

 

[Greebley]

That is why I wanted to go for Cavalry - for quicker victory vs Egypt and Peter.

On the other hand, we unhappiness does not kill our towns. It just means they should be smaller. For example, 2 more units would fix this town.

 

[vmxa]

No suggestion to put jails in every city, only to slip one in large ones, if it makes sense. Often it does not.

Anyway as Greebley stated it only cost you if you can not muster up the extra food. Otherwise you just keep on ticking, no rioting ala civ3.

Edit I have should said you need at least size 18, but probably over 20 to make a jail useful. This works well as those cities can pop one in a hurry.

 

[Xarathas]

Got it, um.. I may or may not be able to play tonight though. If you have a lot of free time on your hand rat, feel free to switch with me. I'll be done at the latest by tomorrow nite, however.

 

[ThERat]

Ok, Xarathas, I will have a look whether I am up in other games, since my gaming time is so different from the others, it's not an issue.

 

[ThERat]

xarathas, just played 10 tiring turns of warmongering in another game, won't play tonight, so you can take it tomorrow