Rat 40 - Introduction to CCM

[Northern Pike]

I would also explore our immediate north a little so we can find a good spot for our 4th city.

For you guys, be careful with the enslaver in AI land as workers and settlers reveal them and the AI would attack them.

Yes, we're already running out of attractive city sites. We might have to settle for the western area where our slaver stands, with two BG and two tobacco visible. At least that way we'd be settling towards the Japanese.

I always send slavers out covered by a spearman. It may be slower, but the slavers last a lot longer. And sending slavers out a long way can be self-defeating anyway, because it's too hard to get the slaves home.

 

[vmxa]

Yes being so far to the next nation, means slavers are either going to be scouts or stay home and fight. I do not send spears as now everyone knows where you are and not very stealthy.

save:

 

[vmxa]

PRE:
I see wines deal ends in 7. We can see Gems, but they are far into the mountains. We can see wines not far from Hanoi, but also several mountains to cross. Phants (not lux) would come along with a town near the grapes.

I move pop in Saigon from grass to bg and gain 1 shield, both on the river. Cuts 3 turns off Slavery. The culture will pop, before it finishes. We will no longer have culture there after build.

Angkor I move 1 citizen from forest with no road to silk to gain 2 gold. Moved one from grass with no road to silk to gain 3 gold. Now gets 9 bpt, rather than 5. I further moved the pop from the tobacco to the last silk on a road.
This was a 2f 1g to now a 1f 2s 2g.

Will now finish Slavery in 1. Beakers now 10. So the town was 6 shields, 16 food and 6 commerce and now is 8/15/12. We can afford the slow down in grow as we will grow in 3 and be unhappy. Really going to be unhappy when the wines are gone.

Hanoi I leave alone.


I am unsure if we had a reason to not trade Wheel to Henry or if it was just not consider worth the trouble. I could not find them on the map, so they are probably not all that close. as the rest have it, I may as well get their gold. I debate waiting to see if we can trade for Writing form them, but no idea, if they will have it before Wheel. They know others, so they could get both and leave us with nothing. Don't know.


Sell for 30 of 32 gold. will at least be a small relation boost for now. I cannot remember how they behave in terms of demands in this mod, probably the same. Will leave us alone as long as we are not weak and there is land and we do not have a lot they want.

The mountains to our southern end should be a nice buffer, if they get froggy. Riding drops from 32 to 24, till we have to boost lux.

IBT:

Isabel wants our hobo to move.
She sends a boat into Hanoi waters though.

2260BC (1):
Ankor start the Royal Stables.

2220BC (2):
Hanoi starts on a boat.

2180BC (3):
No techs to make scientist, need Writing.

2140BC (4):
Hanoi borders pop and now we have a Spanish warrior in our borders. They have another coming behind it and one more not far from Angkor. Plus a scout approaching Saigon. Get a clan and upgrade it, easy to forget and move these guys.

Hanoi starts a bow after two boats. Bows have stealth vs warriors. Will give one turn to see what goes down. For those that read only, that means they act like a sub and can select from a stack which to attack.

IBT:
Not looking all that swell. Canada boots the scout. Spain sends 7 warriors at Hanoi. I doubt they are going exploring or are at war with Canada, so tag we are it.

2100BC (5):
Enslaver kills Japan warrior, no slave. I see my preference now does not have animate battles, so it freaked me out. I am force to move the worker as the warrior is not enough with 2 warriors adjacent. I cannot see moving settler towards north now, so move it toward south and the grass next to the two fish.

We need troops now. I will wait one more turn to demand they leave.

2060BC (6):
I dial up the lovely lady and she DOW's. Bow kills warrior and goes elite. Cover with two spears, 1 from the cap. So no wines now. I do not pop rush any units for now as they are two turns anyway. We should be able to handle that, unless we are very unlucky.

I figure we had to engage at Hanoi. If they passed Hanoi by, we could not defend nor attrit them. We would have to deal with pillage (I forget if this mod allows that or not).

IBT: no action, they do not attack the stack.

2020BC (7):
I forgot we had a scout in Spain, so it must have died. We lost 1 of the boats heading towards Spain. Not a big deal as there is little to see down that way.

4/5 Bow kills warrior. 4/4 warrior kills warrior and goes elite (theirs are all regs so far).

IBT: no attack, they do not want to go at the spears across a river.

1980BC (8):
Enslaver and apprentice pop out as does 2 Bows.

Bow kills one warrior.

Enslaver kills one and gets a slave.
I have the damage enslave heading home as it cannot fort in the jungle safely and there is no place near to heal. A scout is next to it, but on a mountain so I cannot attack it.

IBT:
Hum, I may have been wrong about Spain. I saw Henry attack her transports and sink them, so she may have been after Henry and not us. I could not take that chance as Saigon was nearly defenseless and Angkor was the same, but at least could get some help.

Two warriors attack Hanoi and die, we get one elite.

19140BC (9):
Saigon starts a bow, even with no rax. Next player can switch.
3/4 enslaver kills warrior.
5/5 warrior kills the last Spainish unit in our lands. I only see one and it was heading the other way.

Could switch Saigon to a warrior for MP?

Found Rangoon and start a wall as we can expect Henry to trapse across the mountains for Spain. I did not do a wall in Saigon as it has only a lone spear and we have too many tiles around that town to rely on a single unit. No attacker.

IBT:
Spain sink Henry's transport and Henry attack it and lost a second one.

1900BC (10):
I am helll on scouts as I move one to a mountain and boom I see a barb next to it, so we will not have any scouts soon.

Damaged units healed or just moved into Hanoi. The gov tossed a citizen on to the floodplain and it got sick. I did not see the town grow or I would have check to move it. The FP not giving us extra food right now anyway. So no reason to work it.
(Ah, it was probably moved when a warriro stepped on its tile, wake up).

Cannot get the clown back to work yet. I was hoping the second MP would be enough.
Damage enslaver found a mountian to park upon to heal to the west of Saigon.

I did not move any units in Hanoi. We have several elites and can either go after Spain or not. We can at least kill the parked warrior.

I have not tried to buy Writing lately. They would not sell it earlier and frankly I am not a big fan of feeding them cash above emperor. I prefer to feed them death.

 

[Northern Pike]

That's got the action started.

As you say, you couldn't blindly hope that the Spanish units were just passing through, even if that turned out to be the case.

Given the geography, we should still try to reach peace with Isabella as soon as possible and make Japan our real first target.

 

[ThERat]

I would have done the same. At least we get war happiness.

Another info for the rest, alliances are out of this game until MPPs. Thus, as long as Spain doesn't harm us, we can use their units to gain experience and slaves.

I got it

 

[ThERat]

I am hell on scouts as I move one to a mountain and boom I see a barb next to it, so we will not have any scouts soon.

I was puzzled as I disabled scouts. I can't stand them. Anyway, it's Carthage and not a barb.
They would trade us writing for the wheel and silks. Is this a safe deal as I can see no land or sea connection to their empire. I have to read up on trade in CCM, but it does seem you can trade on your own continent without restrictions?

 

[Civinator]

I have to read up on trade in CCM, but it does seem you can trade on your own continent without restrictions?

Very nice and interesting reports!

Concerning trade: Each palace has the airtrade-flag. This means in concerns of trade, the palace works like airports. That´s the reason why you have early trade in CCM.
Trade spinning araound the capitals is done by roads and harbours (but these ones only on coastal waters). There is no seatrade over sea- and ocean-terrain.

 

[vmxa]

I would take the trade. I would say pull the trigger on trades in the early going on DG. It looked white, so I figured it was a barb, never thought to check it as nothing I could do anyway.

Glad to hear about the scouts as I disbanded one coming back from Japan, rather than hope it did not run into an Enslaver or Spain. We had three when I got it.

Yeah we are probably better off to stay close and kill what we can and wait for a peace contact. Possibly hold off on accepting, till they either give us something or show up with something we do not want to fight.

If they make peace with Henry, then I would feel safer as I am concerned that Henry will want to pass through the land.

I saw the flag for airport, but knew would could not trade across sea/ocean.

 

[ThERat]

Thanks for the clarification, Civinator.

Ok, since the trade is safe via our palace, I am going to get writing then. This means I will also grab any additional lux we could get from the AI.
The funny thing about CCM's trade model is that you can trade overseas luxes with the AI, but once you conquer that continent, you can't connect thoses luxes to yourself due to the restrictions mentioned by Civinator. Well, usually, hapiness is less of an issue at that stage of the game.

I would also like us to get started on building temples as we need 3 of them for the religious builds.

 

[vmxa]

Yeah I was going to start one, before the war. They have no maint cost, so why not.

Edit: Angkor could either switch now to gain back the joker or after the bow. I was going to send the bow up to new town as it only has a warrior now, but one could come from Hanoi.

 

[ThERat]

since we will get writing, the clown can be changed to a scientist immediately

 

[ThERat]

Pre-Turn
dial up Carthage and get writing + all their 37gold for wheel and silks
change clown in our capital to scientist

change build in our capital to temple, we need more happiness
swap Rangoon to national symbol

1. 1860BC
India and japan have IW, India seafaring as well
connect another silk lux

India would trade IW with us for quite some cash and silks
decide to go for it, get Iron Working for silks, 145gold and 4 gpt

while we have horses to the south, we got iron north of Hanoi
trade IW to Portugal for 53 gold and their wines, now we can run at 0% lux

2. 1820BC
Spain is willing to talk, but of course we do not go for this yet
stepping towards a Spanish warrior we spot ivory in the north, looks like another nice spot to settle

3. 1780BC
Hanoi produced a spear that will go to Rangoon.
we slaughter 2 Spanish warriors but get neither a leader nor a slave

IT stables produce a chariot, a powerful early unit that needs to be upgraded first

4. 1740BC
move some units, explore a little in the north, MM and riding is down to 4

IT Spanish are cocky and want 80gold for peace...
Canada is unhappy about our dingy
Japan starts silk road and a Japanese warrior shows up

5. 1700BC
one of our enslavers turns the warrior into a slave

6. 1660BC
our capital has a temple now and fires the scientist
Hanoi goes for a temple instead while Angkor goes for a elephant prebuild
3 AI's have trade and seafaring over us now

7. 1620BC
a Spanish spear shows up, two AI's have mysticism as well,but nobody has riding
our dingy runs into Portuguese borders finally, they are pretty far away

science goes down to 60% for this turn

IT riding is in, I go for maths next as we can get the small wonder for catapults there

8. 1580BC
riding is a monopoly
get mysticism, 230g and 10 gpt from India, the tech leader

wow, Japan refuses to give us any tech even for 2 of ours
sell Portugal mysticism for 41gold and 2gpt

defeat the Spanish spear

9. 1540BC
lots of trades available suddenly
get seafaring + 39 gold for 2 techs and silks

10. 1500BC
we have a first war elephant, our lonely scouts spots new borders, purple too

to even out turns, I play on 4 more turns

11. 1460BC
we defeat a Canadian warrior but gain no slave. Purple turns out to be India
our capital is at pop 8 and makes 15spt

12. 1420BC
we gain another chariot and a third temple
India and Japan have Mathematics now
defeat Japanese warrior for naught

13. 1380BC
Angkor produces a war elephant and Hanoi a Buddhist community
chopped forest at Saigon reveals a BG
get trade/1gpt and 39g from Canada for 3 techs
change Angkor to supply center for silks (this will give us supply carts for 25 gold each every 15 turns)

14. 1340BC
just nice, we get a new clan and can decide where to settle next
Spanish landed an archer, but there is no enslaver nearby
take the archer out with chariot, but barely

defeat Spanish spear, but no slave again

we can actually get mathematics for 180gold from India
I would do that, swap Angkor to siege workshop and maybe go for CoL to get to monarchy sooner
rather than later?

As for settling, I would chose the spot to the northwest between silks and ivory

Our land

 

[ThERat]

By the way, our capital is currently on 15spt and needs only 40spt for war elephants, so I did some MM every third turn take more commerce for 12spt.

Soon we have mined another grass and then make 14spt for that and a nice 42shields war elephant

As we have plenty of forest, we can chop some for sped up academies that we surely need as well.

We should continue to churn out more elephants, they can serve as defenders too as they got 3/2/2 stats. Once we get enough of them, I would go after Japan (maybe let them finish silk road and maybe world religion Buddhism, which has not been started yet as it comes with philosophy)

As for the iron, we don't have an urgent need for it yet. We might want to connect it and form a colony using one of our slaves.

 

[ThERat]

Roster
Northern Pike - up
Greebley - on deck
vmxa
ThERat

Please stick to 10 turns from now onwards

 

[vmxa]

Soon we will have to spread towards Japan so we can seamlessly annex them.

 

[Northern Pike]

Sounds good.

Your "Nice Spot" will be good eventually, but for the moment a city in all that forest would need an excessive amount of worker service. I might found a city claiming the BG tiles W of Saigon, which would be efficient in that we need to extend our roads in that direction anyway to go after the Japanese.

change Angkor to supply center for silks (this will give us supply carts for 25 gold each every 15 turns)

@Civinator: Since the player tends to have plenty of gold anyway in this variant, 25g/15 turns is so trivial an amount that the whole mechanic seems pointless. 25g/10 turns from the Silk Road is equally pathetic, for a Great Wonder. Perhaps it should be at least 100 gold per shipment, or should be a gradually increasing amount? I think the latter idea, to reward early builds the way early building of cultural structures is rewarded by doubling, might be very good.

I've got it.

 

[Civinator]

@Civinator: Since the player tends to have plenty of gold anyway in this variant, 25g/15 turns is so trivial an amount that the whole mechanic seems pointless. 25g/10 turns from the Silk Road is equally pathetic, for a Great Wonder. Perhaps it should be at least 100 gold per shipment, or should be a gradually increasing amount? I think the latter idea, to reward early builds the way early building of cultural structures is rewarded by doubling, might be very good.

Thank you for your input. It´s noted.

 

[vmxa]

I would agree in the main. The thing that may negate the issue is the slow settler problem. IOW we will run into some issues as we make more and more troops or at least want to have more.

The free support is lower than Theo and the per town/city is also lower. This will mean we have to come up with more gold to pay for the support for much of the game. The supply stuff will help some.

Where to place the value from the current level to some of the proposed levels, I am not sure. At the current one, you surely can justify not being in a hurry to build it.

 

[Northern Pike]

View attachment Rat40-940BC.SAV, end of turn

 

[Northern Pike]

1340 (0): I change Angkor to Buddhist Community, a one-turn build, and Saigon and Rangoon will get them as soon as possible too. We're all used to playing on the assumption that culture is for idiots , but when settlers are auto-produced in small numbers and the only way to grow is by keeping enemy cities, laying down an early foundation of culture with the cheap builds available in this mod is vital.

We buy Mathematics from India for 173 gold, and try to switch to Siege Workshop--but in Saigon, not Angkor, so that Saigon too can build veteran units. Unfortunately Saigon has tainted shields from a forest chop, so it has to complete its war elephant first. Thus we might as well build Saigon's BC before the SW too.

We choose Philosophy as our next tech, since like CoL it leads to Monarchy, but also gives us an outside shot at the one-tech bonus.

Angkor BC --> war elephant, Saigon WE --> BC.

The Hebrews complete Solomon's Temple. Don't they have rather a lot of advantages in this mod, having no competition for their Wonders and their religion?


1300 (1): Two more Spanish warriors appear north of Hanoi. We don't have ideal attacks against them yet.


1260 (2): Saigon BC --> Siege Workshop.


1220 (3): The Indians have pulled ahead of us by Construction.

We trample the two Spanish warriors, gaining a slave--but why do slavers pay two MP for desert tiles (2-0)? Needless tricky details such as this don't really help a mod.

We complete Angkor's mine, but can't get to exactly 14 spt for war elephants because the rounding effects from slavery won't allow it.

Angkor WE --> WE.

Angkor --> slaver.


1180 (4): We tusk a Spanish spearman NW of Hanoi (3-0).

The Indians beat us to Philosophy. They've gone from having hundreds of gp to having zero to having 925 just in this round, which is hard to explain. Perhaps they have a trading partner we don't know. Anyway, we buy Philosophy from them for 320 gold and begin work on CoL. We can then see that the Indians have Religion too, presumably because they reached Philosophy first.

We're eligible to build the Great Pagoda now--a good project for our first Leader, when he arrives.


1140 (5): Hanoi WE --> WE, Rangoon harbour --> BC.

Angkor --> training chariot (upgraded)


1100 (6): The Spanish, after a lot of meaningless naval activity off our shores, land a swordsman in the forest SE of Rangoon. We overrun it with a chariot held in central reserve (4-0).

Construction is now in general circulation. We get it from the Carthaginians for Seafaring and Philosophy.

We sell Mathematics to the Koreans for 74 gold and 1 gpt.


1060 (7): We renew our wines deal, sending silks, 2 gpt, and 4 gold to the Portuguese.

We bludgeon a Spanish archer NW of Hanoi, and our WE promotes to elite (5-0).

We found Bangkok, close to the Japanese on the west coast, claiming three BG, two bananas, and tobacco. Thanks to the quick workers in this mod the town is already on our road net.

Rangoon BC --> academy; a long build, but we can help it with chops.

Hanoi --> apprentice (upgraded)


1020 (8): Our elite WE batters two more Spanish archers into mummy (7-0). These attacks could have been made with slavers, but I really want a Leader for the Great Pagoda.

The Japanese and the previously primitive Canadians both have Literature. The Indians value their monopoly on Religion very highly, so a twofer starting that way isn't possible. We get Literature from the Canadians for silks and 247 gold, then send Literature and silks to the Indians for 530 gold.

The Japanese and the Koreans are at war. The Koreans hold Japanese Satsuma. That's an excellent break for us.


980 (9): Angkor WE --> WE, Hanoi WE--> WE.


940 (10): We rout a wandering Japanese warrior, gaining a slave (8-0).

Our exploring warrior finds an area in the north with wines, gold, and floodplains that'll be a good city site eventually, but that's a project for the future.

Our ship pushed on south and east this round, but discoved only barren coastline.

Three slaver victories this round yielded two slaves.

Two elite victories this round didn't produce a Great Leader.