Rat43 CCM - Every Knee Shall Bend

[CommandoBob]

Here is one case. I am Rome at 500 BC, Monarch, Huge.

MapStat shows me this:

Spoiler :

So I go to the trade screen where I see this:

Spoiler :

Build an embassy and investigate Moscow:

Spoiler :

Sure looks like a worker! And Moscow does not have Worker Houses, so the guy was not just upgraded.

Well...maybe. Is there anything to prevent an Apprentice from moving to another city to be upgraded to a worker? Does it have to upgrade in the city that created it? It would be rather bizarre if the AI did that, but not too unexpected.

Go and check out the civilopedia:

Spoiler :

Check the 1.7 biq:

Spoiler :

Everything looks in order. That is, I don't see anything to prohibit the worker from showing up on the trade screen.

Except that in our game I could buy 2 Northeuropean workers from Austria-Hungary and in my game I could not buy 1 Northeuropean worker from Russia. In my game I did not have that option.

The save game is attached, at the start of the turn.

 

[Northern Pike]

Now that is a detailed investigation of a minor point.

Apprentices can't move until they're upgraded, so that possibility can't be any part of the explanation. This is such a sensible way of keeping the player from stupid errors, in fact, I only wonder why Civinator didn't do the same thing with clans.

Perhaps the differently designated starting worker, only, can't be dealt away in CCM? Would that explain our observations so far? It would certainly be a wise provision.

 

[CommandoBob]

Just for reference for lurkers and other CCM players: CCM: Golden Age Triggers by Great Wonders.

 

[Northern Pike]

Thanks, although the implication of that list for this game is evidently that we're going to get our GA either too late to matter, or not at all. However, unless I'm overlooking something, you don't cover Mesoamerican Christianization, which is plainly relevant to us. Do you have anything to add about that one?

 

[CommandoBob]

Went from The Mausoleum of Mausollos to NASA and just skipped it. Fixed.

 

[Northern Pike]

Great, so we'd obviously like to build Mesoamerican Christianization. An early Age of Discovery Wonder isn't generally a good bet, at deity, but we'll only be in competition with the Aztecs and Incas.

OTOH, we'll lose a great deal of the GA's benefits to theocracy's tile penalty. So we should probably think of MC as desirable but not essential.

BTW MC can only be built in a city that already has a Mesoamerican church, although the Civilopedia doesn't say so.

 

[CommandoBob]

BTW MC can only be built in a city that already has a Mesoamerican church, although the Civilopedia doesn't say so.

I missed that, too.

 

[Greebley]

IBT: Poland demands 16 gold. This is small enough that I give them it.
Indo-China and Greece form a peace treaty.
Start the Stoneheads.
860 BC: Decide to build some Swordsmen after Stoneheads - the war is over for Indo-China so we wouldn't want to wait too long.

IBT: Portugal demands 20 gold.

780 BC: Sell a 2 old tech for gold (and 1 gpt from Indo-China).
We are average vs Austria-Hungary vs weak for Indo-China. Do we want to take out the Northern Civs first?

IBT: Austria-Hungary are building Christianity.

740 BC: Not sure which way to send troops so stopping here

Notes:
I started on the swords because I thought we might want to start a war soon and to stop the demands (or at least be able to defend ourselves if the AI demands too much). At this point we have a few swords.

BTW, why do some civs have 6 cities instead of 5? If it was purely war I would have thought that some would have only 4. Instead 1/2 seem to have 5 like us and 1/2 have 6.

Questions:
1) Do we want to attack soon? If so we want more swords. Otherwise we will want Infra instead.

2) Do we want to go for Austria-Hungary or Indo-China?

I am thinking Austria-Hungary may be best. We were average vs Austria Hungary vs weak for Indo-China. It would also allow us to take on more isolated Carthage next. They have Religion and just got Republic this turn, so would be good for tech for peace.

I am including pictures of both civilizations so we can compare how close they are and how they fit in.

 

[CommandoBob]

740 BC: Not sure which way to send troops so stopping here

Notes:
I started on the swords because I thought we might want to start a war soon and to stop the demands (or at least be able to defend ourselves if the AI demands too much). At this point we have a few swords.

Questions:
1) Do we want to attack soon? If so we want more swords. Otherwise we will want Infra instead.

2) Do we want to go for Austria-Hungary or Indo-China?

My big fear: We start working on Austria-Hungary and Indo-China has a bunch of their cheaper War Elephants, feels too big for their britches and attacks us.

I would prefer to take them (Indo-China) out before they can build War Elephants, so that we don't have to fight those things from a civ they can spit them out every turn or so.

BTW, why do some civs have 6 cities instead of 5? If it was purely war I would have thought that some would have only 4. Instead 1/2 seem to have 5 like us and 1/2 have 6.

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 (?).

We are also a turn behind on getting Clans. The other civs built their capital in 4000 BC; we moved and built in 3950 BC.

 

[Elephantium]

I'm not sure we need to go to war just yet; we still have 9 tiles from Tikal to Indo-China's closest city and 12 tiles from Uxmal to Austria-Hungary's closest city. That's a lot of marching!

When we do go to war, I'm not sure who to target. Austria-Hungary is the weaker target, but hitting Indo-China before they get a flood of war elephants makes sense, too.

 

[Northern Pike]

In addition to the elephant issue, Indochina's territory would fit fairly neatly into ours, whereas conquering Austria would give us a really inconveniently shaped empire. So I'd prefer IC as our first target. The fact that we're weak vs. IC and average vs. Austria doesn't tell us much about what the situation will be in 15-20 turns when we're ready to attack.

So, our roading stack approaching Tikal should connect that city, hooking up both silks tiles on the way; can spend about seven turns roading and irrigating three of Tikal's FP tiles; and then should start roading its way across the neutral territory towards Vientiane, whose cultural border it should reach in about sixteen turns from now, the earliest point at which we'll have an adequate attack force anyway.

So for the moment, our three core towns can just pump out swordsmen, but definitely with some Javelin Throwers worked into the sequence as well, since they take the same number of turns as spearmen.

However, Tikal should switch to a granary, since it can't produce veterans.

Our two slavers roaming around Tikal should just retreat to that town where they'll be safe. They're too useful in early offensives to be risked wandering beyond our lines.

Riding is in circulation as well as Republic and Religion, but we may not be able to do anything about it until we get 31 gpt and our spare iron back in ten turns. We can't afford Republic or Religion, and a twofer or threefer starting with the cheaper Riding isn't likely to work.

Greebley, were you posting a midway save for consultation, or do you consider your round finished? If the latter, Elephantium is up.

 

[ThERat]

Agree with those who suggest Indo China. They can be a formidable foe if left too long unchecked and we better take them on first. Their land is also much easier to reach.

We should build some units, defenders as well and attack after the next 2 rounds when our roading crew has reached their borders.

We need to try and extort or steal the religious techs as they will be way expensive for us.

 

[Northern Pike]

We should build some units, defenders as well

Yes, we should remember that the SoD needs more defenders in CCM than in C3C. I'd suggest five or six Javelin Throwers/spearmen.

 

[ThERat]

to keep the game moving, I would say, Elephantium takes over to play his turns

 

[Greebley]

Ya, go ahead Elephantium.

For my own reference, how do we know that Indo-china will get Elephants and Austria-hungary won't? Is it because IC has ivory already? Or is it the units that can be built by the different civs?

 

[ThERat]

Certain Civs do not need ivory to build those WE and they get them much cheaper. Indo China is one of them.

 

[Elephantium]

I'll get started in 8-9 hours. Looks like my turnset will be mostly roading and building swords for ThERat to on Indo-China!

 

[Northern Pike]

Certain Civs do not need ivory to build those WE and they get them much cheaper. Indo China is one of them.

The other three are India, Carthage, and Persia.

 

[Elephantium]

Pre-turn:

Notice that Chichén Itza is at 16gpt for 2-turn swords OR JTs.

Spears: 20 shields
Swords: 25 shields
JTs: 30 shields

MM Copán for growth
Switch Tikal to Granary

*sigh* Tikal is mis-placed. I suggested that we settle it 1NW from its current position to get an oasis tile in the BFC

IBT:

Looks like IC is at war with France. I spot them kill a French Archer and get killed in turn by a French Chariot.

CI: Sword > JT
Copán: Swords

Turn 1 (700 BC):

MM CI for growth; it's at 15spt and +5fpt that way, perfect for producing military.

Oops, looking back at the thread, I see NP talking about roading from Palenque to Tikal, not direct from CI. Our worker stack is headed straight west from CI though

IBT:

Pal: Swords

China completes the Great Wall

Turn 2 (660 BC):

MM Tikal for shields; switch to a more balanced setup next turn (this will let the city grow shortly after completing the granary rather than vice versa)

IBT:

CI: JTs
Copán: Swords

Propaganda in Copán

Turn 3 (620 BC):

Change Pal to MesoSpear -- we'll want 4-6 more of them (two to replace Chariot MPs in the capital and Copán, plus a few defenders for our attack stack)

Re-MM Tikal

IBT:

15 shields to Uxmal ... wasted because we're 1 turn away from building a Stone Head
Scout captured in Dutch lands.
Uxmal: Stonehead > Granary

Poland makes an Embassy with us.
India completes Ganges Pilgrimage

Turn 4 (580 BC):

Misclick and lose the redlined Slaver in the south. I was moving from jungle to jungle through a grass square, and I moved north before it registered that an Indo-Chinese stack was there

IBT:

CI: JTs
Pal: Spears

Italy completes Oracle.
Greeks are building Glib and Colosseum
Austro-Hungarians are attempting to start Christianity and the GLib
Indo-Chinese are building Hammurabi. Good luck to them, I say.
Poles and Carthaginians are building the same wonders as the other AIs

Turn 5 (540 BC):

Hmm, the roading stack at Tikal is a bit of a pickle. It's perfect for one-turn roading, but it's very inefficient for irrigation. Unfortunately, we don't have the military to split the stack for combined duties, so we'll just have to accept the inefficiency.

I'm going to pause here.
We can buy Riding from Italy for 14gpt + 309 gold. I didn't take the time to price it from other civs; do we want to spend the gold for it?

For that matter, what's our plan for getting Religion?

 

[Northern Pike]

*sigh* Tikal is mis-placed. I suggested that we settle it 1NW from its current position to get an oasis tile in the BFC

IMO that placement would have sacrificed the second silks tile, which will be worth three gold even in the tile penalty when we get it roaded, for an oasis which doesn't matter too much when Tikal has plenty of high-food tiles anyway.

We can buy Riding from Italy for 14gpt + 309 gold. I didn't take the time to price it from other civs; do we want to spend the gold for it?

For that matter, what's our plan for getting Religion?

A good question. Religion is really the pig in the python at this stage of the game--Civinator might want to adjust that--and we may have to steal it eventually. But to answer the immediate question, we don't want to spend anything for Riding bought as a onefer, since it's almost useless in itself. We don't need horsemen when we have chariots and slavers, and Jumbos would be an inefficient build at 65 shields even if we had ivory, which we haven't. We want to pick up Riding at the end of a Monarchy-Republic-Riding threefer, or something similar.

On reflection, our strategic road to Indochina should run from Tikal to Hanoi, not Vientiane. This will keep us from having to attack Hanoi across its river, and starting at one end of the Indochinese lands will simplify the tactics.

Edit: We're about to receive our next settler. The safest place to send it would probably be the area NE of Uxmal with wheat and sugar. If we decide to do this, the JT now approaching Uxmal should go ahead to clear fog in that region.