RB12 - Roadkill

[knupp715]

Looks good
Hopefully we can take back Cordoba and destroy the puny Japanese.
I suggest going full throttle with all axemen all the time, but of course I don't know the exact situation yet.

 

[Torello]

I can go Monday night.

 

[Torello]

Turn 1 Whip Barracks in Barcelona, minor movement.

IBT Finish Barracks, Archer, Axemen, discover Alphabet.

Turn 2 Start Axeman (1 turn from overflow of the whip), Axeman (3 turns) and Lighthouse in the new Iron city so that it can grow past size 2. With Alphabet comes tech-trading. Elizabeth is the only one who lacks any tech that we have, I trade Alphabet for Math and 10 gold.

Turn 3 Axeman completes, start Axeman (7 turns)

Turn 4 I look at tech trading again, and I'm now able to trade Math to Alex for Polytheism and Animal Husbandry. Horses appear in 2 places on our starting Island, including directly under Barcelona!! Our luck has turned somewhat. I think that's great news. after much thought I change research from Construction to HBR.

Turn 5 Axeman completed, start Axeman. The war machine (sort of) is rolling now.

Turn 6 Madrid Barracks completes, start Swordsman

Turn 7 Troop movement

Turn 8 More movement, I am using the 3 ships to shuttle troops from the north to the south. Axeman completes in Barc, start Swordsman.

Turn 9 Whip Swordsman in Barc (This was the only way to get a 2 pop whip in Barc, because the Swordsman needed 33 hammers to complete and 1 pop gives 30, so now I have a huge overflow which will build me another axeman in 1 turn.)

Turn 10 Swordsman completes, start Axeman in Barcelona. Swordsman completes in Madrid, start Buddhist Temple? I am not going to End-Turn after my 10th turn so the next player can change these builds if he wants. I actually think we have enough troops to take Cordoba back, and Madrid needs the Temple to grow and work another cottage which is important, and Spiritual means we build it very quickly, but I'll let someone else decide. The Axeman in Barc I think is a no-brainer, it's 1 turn with the whip overflow.
Well I built a small army, it's up to someone else to use it. I went ahead and moved 1 axeman right up next to Cordoba, fortified in a Jungle to intimidate Tokugawa. The rest of the troops, 2 swordsmen and 4-5 axemen are near Madrid or in transit there.

Couple random things. Obviously the swordsman aren't good against the Axemen currently defending Cordoba, but they will be useful in future attacks against archer defenders, plus Toku already built a Spearman there. The 6 Axemen we have should be enough to fight his Axemen. Also the next player is going to have to manage Barcelona and Madrid's growth carefully. Barc is at +2 cruelty but 1 should go away in a turn or two. But it will always grow quicker than we can whip. Madrid needs that Temple to grow as I said, and I believe whipping there would be quite inefficient.

Good luck!

Men with Horses

Intimidation

 

[LKendter]

lurker's comment:

For those of us accessing the forums on a system at 1024x768 pictures at the same size (1024x768) cause constant scrolling to read the report.

Please do the lurkers the favor and keep the screen shoots to a maximum width at 800.

 

[xenikos]

Torello - good news!! If we play our cards right, this means well get to mop up Japan with Conquistadors! (Buddha bless their +50% vs. melee units).

 

[knupp715]

Got the save. Should play tonight.

Hopefully I can steal back Cordoba from the japanese.

 

[knupp715]

Well scratch what I said before. I played then.

(0) On my pre-turn I checked out our situation looking at what we've got. Hopefully we can remedy this situation quickly and get back on our feet.

IBT - Our intimidator axeman gets attacked by a Japanese axe and a spear in Cordoba. We survive



(1) Barcelona builds an Axeman and starts on another. I started moving around troops.

(2) Seville builds an axeman and starts a buddhist temple. The cities happiness is at its limit.

(3) Most of my early turns consisted of just moving units around, trying to set up an attack on Cordoba and pressing enter.

(4) Madrid finished the temple it was building there and started on....axe of course

(5) Barcelona builds an Axe and starts on another.

(6) Seville built it's buddhist temple so now population can grow up some more.

(7) Horse Back Riding was finally researched this turn. I started on Construction because a) if we keep up foreign wars then we will need cats and b) we are so far behind in tech we need something to trade to other AI's

The newly constructed iron city of Toledo finishes a lighthouse and starts on a barracks.

Also this turn, finally.....



Cordoba starts on a barracks.

This was an extra exciting turn, as we also scouted out the Japanese city of Satsuma.


(8) Madrid built an axe which is being shipped off to defend Cordoba. We are building another one to defend Madrid. After this though, I must advise to BUILD A LIBRARY! We have more than enough military atm and the AI is running away with the tech!

I start shipping workers to Cordoba to get rid of the jungle. Plus there is nothing else for them to do on the mainland. Satsuma shall fall next

(9) Seville builds an axe and starts on a settler. An axe is being built in Barcelona to transport that settler. Below is a screenie of what I think we should do with that settler, after we raze Satsuma (or I guess before).


The city will be raking in some incense. The hill mined will be the only production tile, but we will also be getting crabs once our border expands. Satsuma is far to close to England's border for comfort, and I don't think we should keep it. It will flip. Please raze

Our workboat is still exploring the south. Haven't found any way to circle the globe yet and if we build that new city then it should return to work those crabs. Still transporting troops to Satsuma.

(10) Barcelona builds an axe to guide settler and protect new city. It starts on a galley so we can transport that settler and axe over there. I checked trades and everyone had horseback riding except Lizzy. She gave us literature for it.

 

[knupp715]

More screenshots:






Looks like we are doing pretty well with production. We need to improve our economy and tech research though immensely.

The one axeman above is for the defense of Cordoba. For many cities I made sure there was an axe fortified on the city. I don't want any more cities getting captured by Japan with a suprise attack, or even worse somebody else declaring!

Lizzy already has longbows My suggestion is this: after razing Satsuma, Tokugawa will probably want peace. We should sign the treaty hopefully getting some gold or tech out of the deal. Then infrastructure!!! Including libraries. Our economy is getting worse and we are getting farther and farther behind in the tech race. Good Luck to whoever is next up!

And finally, the save:

 

[xenikos]

Revenge!!! Hopefully we can shame the Japanese enough to extort something out of them.

I believe it is I who is up (I was going to ask for the save, but I now see that came in the 2nd post)

Oh, and, Knupp - Lizzy has had Longbows since my *last* turn. Yeah. They're that ahead. I'm thinking we're going to have to invade them down the road (before they get redcoats!)

 

[knupp715]

Oh, and, Knupp - Lizzy has had Longbows since my *last* turn. Yeah. They're that ahead. I'm thinking we're going to have to invade them down the road (before they get redcoats!)

Forget the redcoats, soon there will be tanks on our door step

 

[Torello]

Glad to see that the leading Axeman took out 2 defenders, that's what I was hoping for.

I think it might be a mistake to 'settle down' after only taking one or two cities from Tokugawa, I think we might find that we spend a good portion of the game working on our economy only to find out that we can't completely catch up and it's too late for enough conquering to get the job done. My opinion is that we should keep going on the Japs until we can't any more, and open up spots for at least 10 cities. We don't have to settle all 10 right away to flatline our economy, but a few, and then a few more.

 

[Maksim]

Good job on retaking Cordoba!

Just letting you know - I'm away for the rest of this week. Please skip me should my turn come up.

 

[DocTom]

lurker's comment: What a great team spirit . I would have quit the game at least three times (capital placement,stone/iron, eraly war).
I hope you will make this a win. Good luck on your upcoming challenges against Liz

 

[xenikos]

Pre-turn:

Move over Mr Toad, because this is going to be a wild ride! We've gone from frantically trying to figure out how to defend our absurdly poor empire from Japan's sneak attack, to having them against the ropes. If we're going to eventually try to come back against Victoria and the like, then we'll need some serious expansion - and Japan is by far the best target. They still don't have alphabet, so they're falling behind tech-wise...it is clear that now is the time to press our advantage (before they can build samauri!) How much damage can we do??

We have 4 units in the range of Satsuma.

As it is way too close to that English city, I concur with Knupp on the wisdom of razing...we can use that settler that's currently being built to put a city on the incense up north of Satsuma. We're researching Construction in the hope that we can trade it for some tasty, tasty techs. Let's see how this pans out .

720AD. I survey our cities citizen placement, and do a little bit of MM (switching a few ocean-worked tiles to cottages, that kind of thing.
Cut right to the fun stuff - I see that a galley with another sword and axe are headed for Satsuma, but all they have there is an axe and an archer - the 4 units we have now should be sufficient. I strike with the best city raider axe...and WIN! against the odds

That's absurd good fortune. The sword then makes quick work of the archer. and we raze Satsuma to the ground!

I load up two of the healthy axemen on a galley, and start moving them south. The galley that had the sword (which isn't fully healthy) and the axe goes south to Cordobo-isle as well. The plan is to gather troops there, heal who needs to get healed (in case it is hairy when we land) and then launch one coordinated strike on the best available target.

Meanwhile, our workboat that was hanging around in the southeast I set to come north, to 1. case japan to see which cities make the best targets and 2. to be in position to get those crabs for the forthcoming city on the now Satsuma-less island.

740AD - Rush the galley at Barcelona. With the production overflow, I'm going to build a Buddhist missionary to send to Khan's territory. Why bother with this when we have a war going on? Even though Kublai is Jewish, they mark the English as their worst enemy. Plus the fact that they're big fans of us...this says to me that if we give them another religion to choose from, they'll go buddhist, and relations between the two giants will deteriorate, possibly leading to war. As of now this is the only thing we can do to possibly check English growth - so it is a gamble, but I have hopes it will pay off.

I delete a warrior at Seville to reduce our unit costs (we have 4 units there, 2 warriors...we'll never have enough spare cash to upgrade 2 at once, so that warrior's gaining us nothing)

Gathering the troops near Cordoba:

760AD - Alex wants us to cancel deals with the English, which I refuse.

780AD - Alex doesn't like that from last turn - he cancels open borders with us. Uh-oh. We gotta keep an eye on him.

Here's what we're facing at the nearest Japanese city, Kagoshima -

800AD - Great Library built somewhere
820AD - Power ranking:

We've landed two sets of troops near Kagoshima, and a 3rd is nearby. I'm scouting with that workboat and a galley to see if we have other options

840AD - Madrid finishes a library, starts on a horse archer (those archers on a hill look pretty nasty, so maybe something that's immune to a first strike would stand a decent chance. Plus, upgradable to conquistador later)

part2 - next post

 

[xenikos]

860AD - Construction finishes!

What trades can we get? Nothing fabulous...Alex won't give me anything, Elizabeth gives me Monotheism and 30 gold for it (not the best deal for us, but I'm taking what I can get to improve relations), and Kublai gives us currency and some gold (90, IIRC) for construction and horseback riding. I start research on calender.

Seville builds a settler, start it on a catapult.
Cordoba builds barracks - I initially start it on a lighthouse, but then realize our pressing need for catapults to really damage Japan. The workers down there have built a cottage in the jungle, and now they are going to mine that forested hill...the resulting chop should finish the current cat and almost finish a 2nd one.

Meanwhile, here's our missionary walking on water -

880AD - Here's what England as a whole looks like, if anyone is curious

But, the much more important front - Japan.

Decisions, decisions. I've amassed 6 units near Kagoshima (yes, I removed one of the axes that Knupp designated as a defender of Cordoba, leaving 2 there. Toku's not about to strike there in his current condition, and if we does, we can easily whip more defenders. We'll see him coming from a mile away - 2 axemen + 2 catapults on the way is far different from the 2 warriors we had last time!)

Kagoshima has the following for defenders: 1 sword (combat1), 1 axe (combat1), and 3 archers all unpromoted.
Our forces there: 2 swords (cityraider2, cityraider1) and 4 axes (cityraider 2, 3 cityraider1). My hope was that Tokugawa would send a unit or two out to die attacking us in the jungle, but Toku hasn't Toked quite that much
Since Kago is on a hill, we're facing an uphill battle with those archers (and every other unit) - even all 6 units at once would probably lose. Or at best one would survive, and they'd take the city back. How can we keep our momentum going without massive losses? (note, that Japan will give us one tech and most of its gold for peace now...but look at Tokyo! Gold, rice, cows...all kindly hooked up for us with those precious roads they have. Taking their capital would be HUGE. This is what I'm trying to set us up for)

Our choices: 1. wait until the two catapults are constructed, then go after Kagoshima. It'd still be pretty bloody, though.
2. Osaka is soft! Look at its defenders, just a measly spear and archer

More importantly, if we can get our units between Kagoshima and Osaka, they won't be able to pull reinforcements back from Kago in time. We can leave Kagoshima until we're ready for it, and take the meat out of Japan while they are holed up there. And once cats and more backup arrives...

900AD - I set us up for option 2 by using the two area galleys to quickly get our troops around Kagoshima.

This isn't irrevocable, but it puts us in a position to offload units next turn, block the Kago's troops back to Osaka (except by sea, but that's our galleys jobs), and take the city in 3 turns. 5, if we need to wait for the other 2 troops left by Kago.

other things: That 4th galley is headed to pick up the missionary from England to take him to the Mongols. If we want to shoot for Magellan's (we might have a good shot), then we should have that galley continue west. Otherwise you can bring it back to the main island to bring that settler to its incense-location (we'll want more than that axe there when we settle - if Alex is going to attack, he's going to do it there)

Phew, I think that's it. Good luck!! have fun, Zed-F

 

[Zed-F]

I'll try to get this this evening.

 

[knupp715]

Great Job Xenikos. At first I was reluctant to keep warring because of our tech situation, but after reading your post I agree with you to push on and use our advantage. Good Luck Zed!

 

[Zed-F]

Looking at what we've got going here, we can't afford to capture too many more cities here. Our economy is not very good at all, even at 50% research we're at -3/turn, and that's only going to get worse as we found or capture more cities. Japanese cities are (relatively) far away from our core, leading to lots of distance maintenance costs. I don't think we should be capturing Japanese cities here... we should be pillaging and razing.

I am thinking to settle the incense town, RAZE Osaka, then take our best troops home and leave behind some pillaging axes. Thoughts?

Besides... are we really allowed to keep captured roads, and not pillage them? It seems to be against the spirit of the rules. If we really wanted to allow captured roads to be kept, we should have started on Great Plains, not archipelago, and gone all out conquest from the start.

I need some input here as this is a pretty major decision that will affect the whole group. I really don't think we can conquer Japan or seriously defend conquests there without bankrupting ourselves. I think we want to get what we can, and get out of this war for now. Once our economy is in better shape, we can come back later.

 

[knupp715]

Originally posted by Torello
Glad to see that the leading Axeman took out 2 defenders, that's what I was hoping for.

If you look at the first pic, you can see it was taken a few turns before I actually took the city. The city raider axe killed the other axe and the swordmen killed the archer. I was suprised by my luck in the first battle, just as I was suprised Xenikos captured Satsuma with no losses.

 

[xenikos]

Zed - I hear your concerns regarding overexpansion - but I think that, if we could feasibly take Tokyo and another city on that main isle, it would be well worth it in the long run. I don't think we can climb out of our hole vs. the english very easily if we just sit back and grow - maybe we'd be able to stall them before they launch with some late-game military shennagins, but it could be a nailbiter.

If we take Tokyo - sure, there's probably 3-4 distance cost to the city, but I think it will definately pay for itself (a large city with good resources), and probably more. We definately wouldn't want to keep all of them (Kagoshima would probably get raised, maybe Osaka as well depending on what resources it captures, I can't recall). But adding those cities on great lands, even if they temporarily flatline our economy, will make our growth curve during the renaissance and beyond a lot higher. Plus it would be fun!

About the roads thing - The spirit of the game is just that we can't build roads. I intended from the start to allow us to capture existing ones....gives us interesting options. I don't think anyone's going to say that we'd have it too easy even allowing that! I mean, we didn't start on a pangea or all land script, so all out conquest isn't exactly easy or anything.