Rat43 CCM - Every Knee Shall Bend

[ThERat]

I also realized that IndoChina is pretty close to us and with them most probably wasting their units against Greece, they would be a nice early target.

 

[Elephantium]

I noticed a big stack of Indo-Chinese Warriors in Greece's culture borders in the latest save. They'll get chopped up like cordwood!

 

[CommandoBob]

Despotism
00% Tax
80% Science
20% Luxury

91 gold, +12 gpt

Constructon in -- turns.

City Builds

1. Chichén Itza (9) Great Iron Mine in 1, grows in 3.
2. Copán (6) MesoSpearman in 1, grows in 6.
3. Palenque (3) granary in 8, grows in 5.

01 Iron connected.
01 Wines connected.

01 Worker
03 Scout
05 Warrior
01 Chariot
03 Enslaver
03 American Workers
01 Settler
06 MesoSpearman

Current Units: 21
Allowed Units: 28
Support Costs: 0 gpt

Compared to France (Despotism) we are Weak.
Compared to Netherlands (Despotism) we are Weak.
Compared to Greece (Despotism) we are Weak.
Compared to Portugal (Despotism) we are Weak.
Compared to Austria-Hungary (Despotism) we are Weak.
Compared to Indo-China (Despotism) we are Weak.
Compared to Poland (Despotism) we are Weak.

City Counts
05 Greece
05 Indo-China
05 Netherlands
05 Poland
04 Austria-Hungary
04 France
04 Portugal
03 Maya (Rat43 people)

As usual, we are the 97 lb. weakling on the block.

Plans
Turn 50 of 500. Capital was founded in 4000 BC, so the next settler is due in 10 turns or so.

Our settler pair needs to move 1NW (onto Silks), 1W onto river plains and then build a modest Mayan metropolis on the third turn.

Our next city site is 10 tiles north of our capital, near the Horses and Furs.

We have two solo workers, each one protected by single MesoSpearman. One will finish this IBT and he and his escort can join up with the American Worker 1NW of the capital to finish that mine faster.

We have two workers protected by a single Warrior. That warrior will trade places with two Spears from Copán next turn.

Our new city will need another defender and so will Copán; we let that warrior go exploring as soon as we can. We'll want two or maybe three Spears to escort our new Settler to its home by the horses. Thus, we have an immediate need for 5 new Spears before we can start building Swords. MesoSwords are only 25 sheilds.

Interesting. The Great Iron Mine needs Iron in its city radius, but the Iron does not need to be connected. It increases tax output but does not add to shields.

We are the third richest civ of our neighbors. Greece has 179 gold and the Dutch have 1107. Wow! Wonder what they have been doing.

We know all the tier 1 techs and a single tier 2 tech, Iron Working.

Worker Tasks
We need to get Chichén Itza up to 13 spt so it can produce 2 turn Swords. Right now it is at 8 spt, then the Slavery bonus of +25% and we are at 10spt. Add the two BGs that about to be mined and it is at 12. We might a rounding error in our favor, so that 2.5 sheilds become 3.0, but I don't know if the games rounds up or rounds down. If we need anohter mined BG, there is a suitable tile 1N of the city. If that tile is not needed right away, I wanted to use these two units to road to our Silk City or starting roading towards our Horse city.

Around Copán, once the current BG is mined, two more need improving. Neither tile has a road, so that will slow us down a bit.

I don't know when our next Apprentice appears.


Next City Builds

• Chichén Itza: Great Iron Mine in 1 -> vMesoSpear in 2 -> vMesoSpear in 2 -> vMesoSpear in 2 -> vMesoSpear in 2 -> vMesoSword in 2 .
• Copán: vMesoSpear in 1 -> vMesoSpear in 4 -> vMesoSword in 5.
• Palenque: granary in 8 -> Slavery or Temple, leaning toward Slavery.
• New City: Natioanl Symbol.

This will give us 6 new Spears instead of 5; one of them can be switched to a Sword.
Keep our Scouts out scouting. Maybe throw out some Warriors to go exploring too.

 

[Northern Pike]

Basically that all sounds good. Just a couple of notes about our builds:

1. We can't tell when we'll be able to trade for Mathematics, but the moment we do, Palenque should switch to Siege Workshop, which is more important than anything else it might be building. We need to start accumulating catapults, and SW has to be built in Pal so that we'll have a third town that can produce veterans.

2. Copán is rather underdeveloped--no granary, no slavery--so after its present spearman I'd let it build a granary. Chichén Itza can bear the main burden of unit production for your round.

 

[ThERat]

I agree with NP that we do need some infrastructure in Copan once our capital can build the military units. However, our capital might also need a temple to be able to stay happy.

Do be careful about covering a city with only 1 warrior, there might be happy issues as well.

 

[CommandoBob]

0 1740 BC

Out west, move the Settler and MesoSpear NW onto Silks.
To the southwest, our Scout goes 1E, into Greek territory and finds more Indo-China rWarriors.
​

[IBT]
Odd Indo-China troop movements, with some leaving Greece.

Preboot by Greece.

Royal Stables produces Training Chariot.


Small, but Wonderful News



Great Iron Mine is built in Chichén Itza.

Chichén Itza: Great Iron Mine -> vSpear in 2.
Copán: vMesoSpear in 1 -> granary in 10.


What?



Greeks get nosey and build a spy house in our capital. Like our advisor, I'm not sure what this means.

Solomon's Temple is built in Jerusalem, Israel.


1 1700 BC

Greek rHoplite encroached on Palenque on the unroaded Wine hill.

Swap the warrior on the workers for 2 MesoSpears.

Rename our worker to Initial Worker and move him and his escort to the American worker 1NW of the capital; mine in 3 not 6.
Settler pair move onto plains river tile.

Poland has a settler pair on the prowl.

We find Sparta. No Indo-China units are near it, though they and Greece are still at war.

Wake up Warrior in Chichén Itza and send him towards Palenque, to allow the Spear in Palenque start moving to our new city. This leaves two units in Chichén Itza to keep the natives quiet.
​

[IBT]
Two IndoChinese units die.


2 1660 BC

Hoplite moves south and acts like it wants to leave our grounds.

Warrior into Palenque and kick out the Spear.

Tikal is founded out west; National Symbol in 4, grows in 10.

We find a NE-SW coastline 5NW of Tika.
​

[IBT]
Chichén Itza: vMesoSpear -> vMesoSpear in 2.

3 1620 BC

Hoplite exits our Mayan meadows.
Mathematics is known by Greece (1008 gold), Dutch (604 gold) and Portugal (broke).

New Spear in Chichén Itza heads to Palenque.

MesoSpear from Palenque and another Warrior head to Tikal.

Our northern-most Warrior spots a wandering Roman Spear.
Rome is only as smart as we are and has 460 gold and 6 cities, one more than anyone else.

No one will sell us Mathematics or Trade.
We have 139 gold and +19 gpt. The price for either tech must be over 500 gold.

Sell Iron Working to Indo-China for 54 of 54 gold.
Now we can buy Mathematics; 17 gpt and 192 of 193 gold regardless of the seller.
We give our business to Portugal, since they are broke.

Palenque: granary in 5 -> Seige Workshop in 9.

We have 1 gold and +2 gpt.
Things look grim for the next 20 turns.

However,
Sell Mathematics to Rome for 1 gpt and 460 of 460 gold.

Now we have 461 gold and +3 gpt and things look better.

Poland will not trade us Trade for Mathematics. They have 6 gold. Except for Carthage with 85 gold, all other potential customers of Mathematics are worse off than Poland.
​

[IBT]

4 1580 BC

We find Pireaus, Greece. Two Triemes are visible.
MesoSpear arrives in Palenque.
I'm blind.
Upgrade the Training chariot in the capital.
I thought it was a real Chariot; did not see the training wheels.

Chichén Itza is now at 12 spt, since the BG 1 NW of the city is mined. Move those worker and guardians 1NE and begin to mine another BG, which will let Chichén Itza build 2 turn MesoSwords.
Mining at Copán is done. Begin to mine 1SE of the city.

Northern Warrior finds a dark blue border but no matchng units are visible. I think this is Austria-Hungary.
​

[IBT]
Chichén Itza: vMesoSpear -> vMesoSpear in 2.
Enslaver in Copán.

5 1540 BC

We did find Austria-Hungary, far to our north.
New MesoSpear goes to Palenque.
Enslaver heads to Palenque also, to try to feast on Indo-Chinese warriors.

In Tikal, we work the flood plain for faster growth; National Symbol still in 1.

Poland has 3 Silks for trade. The asking price is Mathematics. We were just window shopping anyway.
Warrior in Palenque heads west.
​

[IBT]
Tikal: National Symbol -> Walls in 20.

Poland is building The Great Lighthouse (Seafaring -> Scientific Method).

6 1500 BC

Seafaring has been learned; Netherlands, Poland, Greece and Portugal know it.

Raise luxury to 30% to keep Copán growing; fire a clown in the capital, switch remaining clown to geek. Now at +4 gpt, down from +10 gpt.

second MesoSpear in Palenque.
Warrior arrives in Tikal; now it has 2 defenders.

We find Horses SW of Palenque.

We are unable to buy Seafaring.

I'm Buying That



But, we buy two workers from Austria-Hungary for Iron Working.


We also grab their 16 gold when they are not looking.

We send our new production assistants across the river to help mine.
​

[IBT]
Austria-Hungary gives us a preboot; expected.

Chichén Itza: vMesoSpear -> vMesoSpear in 2.

Poland is building Silkroad (Trade and connected Silks).

7 1460 BC

We explore inside the Netherlands.
We leave Austria-Hungary.
We spot Carthage colors off the coastline NW of Tikal.
​

[IBT]
Preboot from the Dutch, nothing new.
The Dutch are building The Great Lighthouse (Seafaring -> Scientific Method).

8 1420 BC

Mining done at the capital and now we can spit out MesoSwords in 2 turns.
I forgot that Maya is an IND civ.
Send two workers and 2 slaves 1N to road.
Road at Copán.
​

[IBT]
Royal Stables produces Training Chariot.
Chichén Itza: vMesoSpear -> vMesoSpear in 2.
Worker Houses produce an Apprentice.
Copán: granary -> slavery in 6.

Greeks are building The Oracle (Mysticism).


9 1380 BC

Mysticism is learned. Greece, Netherlands and Poland are so learned.

Upgrade Apprentice and Training Chariot.

Second MesoSpear arrives in Tikal.
​

[IBT]
Our northernmost Warrior is attacked by a ghost.

Dutch are building The Oracle (Mysticism).
Greeks are building The Oracle, again.


10 1340 BC

Greece and Carthage know Construction.

Put our wounded warrior on a mountain to heal.

New worker in Copán heads towards the capital to join the other two workers next turn on the Road to Horses.

Workers at Copán move to the last unimproved BG and start mining it.
Both slaves move to join them.
​

And the save is attached.

 

[CommandoBob]

Tikal and Palenque Area, 1340 BC

Spoiler :

Not a whole lot to see, but this is our newest city. It is isolated, which is why it is building walls.

Trades
Seafaring, Trade, Mysticism and Construction are in play.

We can buy Mysticism from Carthage for 434 gold, the lowest price by 20 gold.

Mysticism and Math might be enough to get us Seafaring and Trade; I didn't play around any to find out.

Workers
We have two workers 3N of the capital, roading a forest tile. Two south of them is another American worker, ready to help. These three workers can road a tile in one turn. Their task is to road to our Horse city.

Outside Copán is a stack of two workers and two slaves. The slaves will able to help the workers mine next turn. Once this tile is mined and roaded, their next best task would be to road to the capital on the south side of the river, and allow speedier movement between the two cities. Then perhaps begin to road to Tikal, which is 6 tiles to connect directly 1SW of the capital. Tikal to Palenque is seven tiles.

All of our worker stacks have two defenders.

Random Stuff
We met Rome.

We bought 2 slaves from Austria-Hungary for Iron working. They were the last ones that did not know that tech.

Siege Works completes in Palenque this turn.

We are paying 17 gpt to Portugal for Mathematics. This has 13 more turns to go.

We are running at 30% luxuries so that our first two cities can be more productive. At 20% we need to take people off the work force in both cities.

We have one geek learning for us, in the capital.

We only suffered one invisible attack on this turnset, which we won. Seems low.

Tikal is focused on shields to complete the wall; then it can go back to growth.

Copán is the only city with just two defenders; the others have three.

Since we founded our capital in 3950 BC instead of 4000 BC, our next clan appears next turn.

We have a Warrior 2 turns away from Tikal. That will make a fourth defender in this exposed city.

Our Enslavers are sniffing around Indo-China.

Our military advisor tells us that the Poles captured a Dutch settler; Rome captured an Austria-Hungary settler and Portugal has lost two units to Canadian Enslavers (?).

Construction in 46; 510 gold, +5 gpt.

Military
01 Worker
02 Scout
05 Warrior
02 Slave
02 Enslaver
04 American Workers
11 MesoSpearman
02 Chariot

Current Units: 28
Allowed Units: 34
Support Costs: 00 gpt

 

[Northern Pike]

Fine trading, with the Austrian workers a nice bonus.

Well spotted about the Canadian slavers--so they must be on our continent too.

Greeks get nosey and build a spy house in our capital. Like our advisor, I'm not sure what this means.

Principally that this is CCM, and they have money to burn even at this stage.

I've got it.

 

[Northern Pike]

View attachment 303078, end of turn

 

[Northern Pike]

1340 (0): The horses we've discovered SW of Palenque raise the question of whether our next city should go there rather than in the northern horse plains. It's arguably a sufficiently superior site to justify taking a chance of losing the nothern furs. But finally I decide it's a needless risk to have our source of horses close to three other civs.

With the option of trading our iron and wines and hooking up our spares, I'm confident of a threefer, even though Construction is probably out of reach. So, 435 gold (evidently CB gets a one-gold discount I don't ) to Carthage for Mysticism; Mathematics, Mysticism, and 20 gold to France for Seafaring; and Seafaring and Mathematics to Austria-Hungary for Trade and 16 gold. We then recoup 141 gold and 3 gpt by selling Seafaring to Rome. In the event, we don't have to send away iron or wines.

CB has done a good job of getting our garrisons up to strength, so I'll be building mostly infrastructure this round.

Palenque SIEGE WORKSHOP --> temple.

Chichén Itza clan --> settler.

 

[Northern Pike]

1300 (1): A wines shipment reaches the capital.


1260 (2): Hmm, the southwestern horse site has dyes too. The principle of founding the safer horse town still applies, though. This means that four out of seven luxuries in the game (ivory is only a strategic resource in CCM) are already accounted for on our continent.


1220 (3): Copán slavery --> temple, Tikal walls --> granary.


1180 (4): We get a good chunk of our gpt back, but with only Construction in play this isn't the time to spend it.

Another slaver appears in Copán.


1140 (5): Our southernmost scout meets the Turks, who are probably on an island, though that's not certain yet. They're hopelessly behind and will only be a source of pocket change in exchange for obsolete techs.

Chichén Itza marketplace --> temple. The marketplace is worth an immediate 7 gpt.


1100 (6): An iron shipment reaches Chichén Itza (which is also where it begins, actually ).

Construction, Literature, and Philosophy are all in play, and we're fairly rich, so another threefer should be possible. We buy Philosophy from Poland for 21 gpt, 8 gold, and iron (which we aren't using for builds at the moment, and in any case we have a spare). As usual the straight Philosophy-for-Construction trade is considered insulting, but we're able to get Hannibal to agree by throwing in 335 gold and 10 gpt. Finally we trade Philosophy and 59 gold to Caesar for Literature--though we first have to scrape up 111 gold by selling old techs to primitive civs.

The Greeks and the Poles have the brutally expensive Religion, so probably one of those civs was first to Philosophy.

One of our slavers defeats an Indochinese bowman outside Vientiane and takes a slave, though we may never get it back to our lines--always the problem with roaming slavers (1-0).

Chichén Itza training chariot --> chariot.


1060 (7): Not much.


1020 (8): A free tech, in effect--suddenly Code of Laws is general, and the French will trade it even-up (they having not a gold piece) for Construction.

Our exploring warrior in the north defeats an invisible attacker (2-0).

We get our reserve iron hooked up.

Copán temple --> Javelin Thrower.

Siege Workshop in Palenque produces our first catapult.


980 (9): We found Uxmal, at the end of our settler's long march north.

Portugal has a worker for sale, so we grab it for 4 gpt and 54 gold. This is particularly useful because the Portuguese worker, added to our two Austrian gastarbeiter, makes the equivalent of one native worker, giving us a one-turn roading stack of three guests and two natives.

Chichén Itza temple --> granary.


940 (10): We get horses connected at Uxmal, but since every civ we know has strangely bypassed Riding, we still can't build horsemen. Ancient cav, which are what we really want, become available with Republic.

Since no one has Riding, no one has elephants yet, of course.

One slaver victory this round yielded one slave.

 

[Northern Pike]

The long road north:

 

[Northern Pike]

We're caught up in techs, except for Religion.

Palenque is about to complete our third temple, so our next build in every city should be Mesoamerican Stonehead, or we won't get the intended benefit from the temple drive.

We have a one-turn roading stack outside Chichén Itza. After it roads the obvious BG tile, it should move west and spend the rest of the next round conecting Palenque to Tikal. This (with our other worker force at Uxmal) will leave us with only one worker servicing our three core cities, which is certainly odd, but we have to do it. Tikal will be essentially useless until its silks are hooked up and its floodplains are irrigated. CB is right that a direct route from the capital's iron mountain to Tikal would be one tile shorter, but starting at Palenque will let us road two river/forest tiles Pal needs to have developed anyway.

Chichén Itza is only working its iron mountain so that it won't grow before it completes its granary. Once the granary is built it should return to +5 food.

We have one furs tile outside Uxmal roaded, and we'll start to get the benefit of it in twelve turns, after the NS and Stonehead builds there produce a cultural expansion.

Our new slave is five tiles from Tikal, protected by a slaver.

Our exploring warrior in the north (outside the Carthaginian lands) is fortified to heal. It probably doesn't have much future, but it should at least move onto the nearby mountain to get a good look into Carthage.

 

[Northern Pike]

Northern Pike
Greebley - UP
Elephantium - On Deck
ThERat
CommandoBob

 

[CommandoBob]

So, 435 gold (evidently CB gets a one-gold discount I don't ) to Carthage for Mysticism; Mathematics, Mysticism, and 20 gold to France for Seafaring; and Seafaring and Mathematics to Austria-Hungary for Trade and 16 gold. We then recoup 141 gold and 3 gpt by selling Seafaring to Rome. In the event, we don't have to send away iron or wines.

My notes were wrong. I had stopped trading at 434 gold so I wouldn't accidently trigger a deal as I was checking prices with everybody. (What a differrence a little bit of sleep makes!)

 

[ThERat]

Two awesome rounds gaining us techs and foreign workers, really excellent.

Seems the AI is wasting their units and slavers on others

 

[CommandoBob]

Buying Workers
I'm still a bit surprised that I could buy two workers from the AI. In other CCM games I will see them available via MapStat, but when I talk to that civ, the workers are not present.

Up to now I've just assumed that only the initial worker was allowed to be sold. Buying two of them indicates that auto-produced workers can be bought also.

Has anyone else seen workers in MapStat but not on the trading screen?

 

[Greebley]

Ok, I got it and will play tonight or tomorrow.

 

[vmxa]

Lurker:

Maybe there were not upgraded yet?

 

[Northern Pike]

A very convincing speculation.