RB-31: Playing God

[scooter]

I might be a bit late, but might it be a good idea to get Cyrus in on this war, to see if he'll capture a city or two? It might not be a bad idea to make absolutely sure that he is our UN opponent... Looks like I'm a bit late, but yes I am also absolutely against razing any of those cities, New Rostov and Elephantine both prove that we can push the other cities back (Elephantine is already gaining back tiles and Hatty is creative). Orleans has a food resource, so it'll grow quickly and it can support a sistine-enhanced artist specialist easily, plus rush-buying a theatre will help. Also, I say just beeline to Mass Media and backfill any techs we miss from there (we've got a tech lead so we won't be much behind in other areas), I don't see any really pressing need in the GS from Physics (at least enough to delay the UN), but that's something we need to discuss (KMad disagrees I think).

Edit: uh... I have a bad memory , we need Physics anyways so disregard the last statement,

 

[KMadCandy]

if we get cyrus in, he gets more population, true.

BUT, he then earns the +mutual military struggle benefit with those who are fighting with us. that's what we're trying to avoid by not inviting him in. we're trying to earn +relations that he's not earning.

nono i don't need the GS from physics. but we can't get mass media without physics . since we have to get that tech anyway, i vote to go at least that far on the UN beeline now, to try to get that GS and stop the others from having it. and then talk about whether to keep beelining straight, or detour a bit at that point. but physics itself is not a detour at all.

 

[scooter]

but we can't get mass media without physics .

Heh, that's what I get for trying to go by memory... okay, let's grab that GS then.

 

[Berrie]

After we finish Louis and after the beeline to Mass Media, I feel we should go back to spreading Christianity to every city in the world. I even feel we should hold off on a cultural victory in the meantime.
It is after all our variant goal to spread Christianity all over the world. I would like to see us live up to that. Besides it would be swell to achieve that goal. It's something I have never done before, while I already achieved a couple of cultural victories. To do both would be the best result, of course.

And a question for everybody listining. What's with the love for grenadiers? I barely ever build them. Only when I need to fight musketiers. Am I missing something?

 

[KMadCandy]

grens are easier to get to than rifles if you tech that way. in our case it was handed to us on a platter, since fred traded us chemistry. they're not only stronger than muskets, they have a bonus 50% when attacking riflemen (but not when defending). so they rock! i've probably built a total of 15 muskets in my entire civ life. grens and rifles tho, lots and lots. if the bad guy has rifles, grens are your best bet (unless you have like tanks or infantry ). cavs and rifles aren't as good as grens are vs. rifles even tho their base strength is higher.

i also prefer grens just because you can't get muskets any way other than building them. grens you can get from upgrading units, which is faster usually and the ultimate, you can give them city raider promotions by manipulating that upgrade advantage, muskets you can't.

dawn's still building missionaries at the start of this turn set. we haven't lost sight of speading the word . it is definitely something we want to do!

 

[scooter]

And a question for everybody listining. What's with the love for grenadiers? I barely ever build them. Only when I need to fight musketiers. Am I missing something?

I find grenadiers to be a weaker option if you're playing below your normal difficulty level (or if you're the tech leader) because you can probably hit infantry before (or shortly after) most AI's hit Rifles with a focused beeline, and infantry vs rifles isn't much of a fair fight. If you're playing above your average skill level, grenadiers are nice because they're easier to get to then Rifles, and you have a good option. When I'm making the Cavs/Rifles/grens and cannons decision, I find myself deciding based on the tech sitution, if I have a very comfortable tech lead, I try to wipe out a civ or two with Cavs. If I have a slight tech lead, I go with Rifles (since Rifles shred Cavs pretty comfortably), If I'm taking on opponents who are my technological equal or even greater, I go the Grens/Cannons route. At least that's my general thought process...

 

[dawn]

Oh, the Word is still being spread. That's our variant for a win, so I'm continuing that path. There are two galleons heading around to JC's waters to help move troops and missionaries when our superior army reaches those shores. The caravel is moving up to take on missionaries for ferry duty to the small islands in the South.

I should be able to finish up the turns today and post by tonight.

 

[KMadCandy]

If I'm taking on opponents who are my technological equal or even greater, I go the Grens/Cannons route. At least that's my general thought process...

yup that's it. if they have rifles and you don't yet, then grens help you a lot more than rifles or cavs will, when you're on offense. i like to play at levels where they can learn techs faster than i can ... part of why and how i focused on diplomacy to get them to like me! but of course i can't say anything in as few words as scooter can!

 

[dawn]

4) 1670AD
Jericho: cannon -> pikeman
Moscow: galleon --> cannon
Elephantine: missionary --> missionary
Louis sends out 2 HA + 1 cat as a counter strike. Our phants take them out.
Orleans: capture reveals forge, market, and bank. 6 turns of revolt

5) 1675AD
Jerusalem: theatre --> bank
Research bumped up to 90% to complete Milt Trad
Tyre: missionary
Christianity spread to Pi Ramesses

6) 1680AD
Milt Trad --> Sci Meth (Mass Media path)
Tyre: missionary --> cav
Jericho: pike --> pike
St Pete: theatre --> observatory
GS born in Jericho, build the academy
Louis counter attacked with an HA but can't reach our phant and is stepped on.

7) 1685AD
JC wants to trade maps, sure no problem.
JC joins the war effort for economy and Hatty thinks it's great deal also.
Bombard Paris

8) 1690AD
Moscow: cann --> cann
New Rostov: cathedral --> courthouse
Hatty switches to Free Market and Vassalage
Christianity spread to Byblos
Paris bombed to 0 defense
We reach #1 on the power graph!!

9) 1695AD
Jericho: Pike --> cav
Gaza: theatre --> courthouse
Christianity spread to Arretium and Bactra
Battle for Paris: 1 cann dies and 2 devestate the defenders. 5 gren succeed. 3 Camel Archers latter and the city is ours. Just one loss. Paris comes with granary, market, and the Mahabodhi!! We now control all the Holy Cites.

10) 1700AD
Peter wants us to conver to Judaism. Um, yeah, right.
Sci Meth --> Physics
Revolt to Uni Suff
Orleans: rush the theatre. Now producing 38 but ready to starve. Will pop the borders next turn.
Oil discovered under the farm 1E of Jerusalem.
JC takes the French island of Chartes.

I have a galleon returned from the Far East islands to Gaza to carry more missionaries. The Caravel at New Rostov is there for the same thing in the Southern Isles.

Our great armies are heading towards Lyons. Two cav are on the hill overlooking Marseilles (only 3 longbows). Two newly upgraded cav are in Paris and can join for that fight.

Managed to get 4 cities converted to Christianity.
7 cities on the mainland to convert.
3 Southern Isle cities to convert.
4 East Isle cities to convert.

 

[Berrie]

Captured two cities, converted four other cities and managed to get JC and Hatty into the war! Excellent... *cue Monty Burns voice*

 

[dawn]

Captured two cities, converted four other cities and managed to get JC and Hatty into the war! Excellent... *cue Monty Burns voice*

Given the weekend I just had, that's more impressive than you know.

Good conversations and input by everyone contributed to the turns.

 

[KMadCandy]

what a way to start a war awesome!

lmao when i tried to talk to fred in the save to see what he's up to with that WHTMOOH thing, he said "watch out for our worst enemy, Louis XIV, he can't be trusted!" well yes, fred, did you not notice that i'm at war with the guy??? so i guess that's who fred's planning to attack. buddy, should have planned it better, you could have gotten a free technology out of it! *giggle*

"We now control all the Holy Cities."
he even built us a shrine AND a market. what a guy!

"Orleans: rush the theatre. Now producing 38 but ready to starve. Will pop the borders next turn."
they can go on a teensy diet . because the culture situation there is pre-existing, the border pop won't be automatic when the culture crosses the line shown on the city screen, but we'll get the tiles. we need to bump up the culture slider for now anyway since war weariness is already giving us 3 angry citizens in jerusalem, that'll help with the border battle too.

"Managed to get 4 cities converted to Christianity."
and even have boats ready to do more. sweet!

nice to know we have oil, i don't think we'll ever need it

you totally get bonus style points for this:


there are some camel archers fortified in moscow, jericho, and hebron. i'm not sure why they're way back there?

some workers are still out there making lumbermills. but some of the workers are in cities, with the "stop action" button as a choice ... but they're not doing any action, they look like they're napping. they're not fortified, there's no wake button, just the stop button. but i hit enter to see if they did anything, and they didn't. they might have been there a long time. i went through every city to check which ones had people angry enough not to work, i don't do that after every round. anyway, i have no idea what "action" the game thinks that they're doing, but we probably should put them to work milling some lumber.

 

[dawn]

I loved it when Peter came demanding that we convert to his religion. "Um, gee there Pete. Wasn't that religion founded by us anyway?" "You have about 20-30 more turns to live there buddy. See those sails on the horizon, rounding the cape down by JC. Yep, the green ones. They will soon be carrying troops to show you conversion."

I noticed the workers in the cities, but we had enough doing lumbermill work so I wasn't too worried.

Totally forgot about the other camel archers. Cyrus had me slightly worried as he moved a large cav force around near the border for a time. Guess our power rating changed his mind. I do like to have some reactive forces keep in the home cities (I'm the highly conservative type ).

Need to get Marseilles before JC does. He's got some really good forces moving around in his territory. Hatty hasn't shown any troop buildup so we may have time to take Lyons and Tour. Freddie didn't have a lot of troops nearby either.

 

[dawn]

Roster check:

Clovis- Out of pocket
Dawn- Just played
scooter- Ready to take it to Louis
Kmad- On deck
Berrie- waiting in the wings
mrwhite-

 

[KMadCandy]

Totally forgot about the other camel archers. Cyrus had me slightly worried as he moved a large cav force around near the border for a time. Guess our power rating changed his mind. I do like to have some reactive forces keep in the home cities (I'm the highly conservative type ).

yeah that's what i figured. i don't completely empty my home territory either, but since they were fortified i thought maybe they got forgotten. i just check cyrus once in a while to see if he has too much on his hands, if he doesn't i feel safe . hubby laughs since i don't put my "ok these are my safety net" guys on fortify. he's like "doesn't it drive you crazy skipping them every turn?" well no, cuz if i fortify them i'll forget they're there and then they won't come in handy when i need them! but he's not like me so he doesn't understand . i'm not saying send them ALL up north, that might be a bit dangerous!

the workers tho, we're paying them salaries. well, upkeep anyway. so we may as well use 'em *giggle*.

i expect that if hatty and fred do anything it'd be pillaging, and that if anybody actually kills a troop or takes a city it would be JC. besides us of course. but we'll find out!

 

[scooter]

Wow great stuff here, I don't see much to be said other than I'm up. I'll try to get this done ASAP, but this weekend I'll have much more time to spend on this, so KMad, if you can grab it now and play before late Thursday/early Friday (and I'll just swap w/ you and play after), it would speed things up now. I know this'll probly just confuse our lineup even more, but I don't know if I'll have the time until Friday.

As I was typing this I did think of something we might need to do (I haven't seen any comments on it in the reports so I don't know). We'll probably need some navy build-up, since Galleons (thankfully w/ the Circumnav bonus) can only take a few units at a time, plus we need 3-4 missionaries for after we take the cities, plus 1 or 2 in case of a failure... As soon as we wipe Louis off the mainland (actually before) we need to prepare for that, which includes making boats at our southern port cities now. Other than that everything looks/sounds great!

Edit: this might be in the process of being done right now and I didn't know it, but I'm just making sure.

 

[KMadCandy]

scooter that works, since i'm going to be out of town thursday thru saturday it turns out. i'll play tomorrow and i'll try not to get us killed!

"As soon as we wipe Louis off the mainland (actually before) we need to prepare for that, which includes making boats at our southern port cities now."

dawn mentioned making 2 galleons before declaring war. i think that's enough probably. the boats can stay parked near the islands, we can walk the missionaries across the land and just use the boats as ferries. louis was the issue there, due to no open borders. and that ought to not be a problem soon *knock wood*. in any case i won't be making the boats "now", since cannon are more a priority atm. but if we do need more boats then yes we'll make 'em .

 

[dawn]

Boats you ask? We got boats!

There are 2 galleon just rounding the southern edge of JC heading toward the East Isles. These can ferry troops and missionaries.
There is one galleon returning to Gaza from a missionary trip. She're ready for another load.
The caravel is parked at New Rostov for missionary trips to the Southern Isles.
There is a newly promoted frigate at New Rostov also.

 

[KMadCandy]

you see what a great multi-tasker dawn is? how am i supposed to follow that great round? oh dear!

 

[dawn]

you see what a great multi-tasker dawn is? how am i supposed to follow that great round? oh dear!

And how many camel archers did I just leave sitting in the cities? Totally forgotten! Multi-tasking? That was just

Did figure the boats would come in handy though. Didn't realize someone had already started one when I started the other two. But it's all good!