RB2 - Clueless Catherine Conquers Crowded Continents

[Aretii]

Gold, if you can play the turnset within 24 hours or so, you should pick it up for efficiency's sake. If not, I'll grab it and play Wednesday.

 

[MuLepton]

Nice turnset!

Too bad no other leader has any gold, with our happy surplus, we could easily sell one resource. I agree that we should focus on the lower part of the tech tree for now, to eventually get to rifles/cannons/artillery. As for who our next target should be... it's probably either going to be Monty or Washington.
Monty would be attractive (waitwhat?) because
* Washington's busy with China, his army's all over the place.
* Washington's a buffer between Monty and us - we'd have a small front against Monty initially.
* Our relations with Washington are better than with Monty.
On the other hand, we don't want to be at war with Monty and have Washington declare on us when he's finished with China.

Or we could join Washington and take out China.

Thoughts?

 

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I will check tonight when I get home from work and see if anyone has grabbed the save. If not, I'll play it. That will probably be 12 hours from now.

 

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Take stock. Here is what I do:

T125: Stop worker roading in the NE of Moscow, return Settler one tile, settle for instant trade route and closer ICS spacing. We don't need fur happiness yet, and we can settle up there later when we do. Instantly put workers on Iron mine and Marble quarry. Put Rostov and Istanbul on markets. Upgrade two spears to pikes with our extra cash.



Realize Wu is running a weak OCC and decide to put her out of her misery. Move one Horse from the north and one from Lhasa to the east of her borders, and move a GG and cat stack. Move a chariot archer too. Should be more than enough.

T126: Build Library at Edirne.

T127: Dublin gifts us a Pike. Troops in place. DOW on Wu. Use Chariot Archer and Horse to kill warrior. Put cat in place to fire from hill onto Beijing. Attack city with other Horse.

T128: Wu brings one warrior who gets ZoC before it can reach cat or chariot. Kill it with chariot archer. Cat the city. First Horse is enough to finish Wu. No loses.



T129: Caesar cancels PoS against Biz. Must not like our warmongering. Metal Casting finishes. Put us on Chivalry so we can use our massive gold reserves to turn our Horses into Knights. Jeez is conquering going to be easy then.

T130: Library finishes at Edirne, onto a market. Horse finishes in St. Pete onto a market.

T131: We have close to 2000 gold. Decide to purchase a market and a forge for Moscow (I figure that might be the one city we actually put many buildings into). Swordsman finishes in Moscow and I put us on Chichen Itza. Along with Forbidden Palace, this is one of the few Wonders worth having I think. I remove one Scientist, go to max Production, which stagnates food.

T132: Market finishes in Istanbul and I put us on a mint. Washington comes asking for OBs and I sell them for 40g instead. He doesn't seem to mind us. Biz hates us.

T133: Biz DOWs Caesar. This will buy us time to do whatever we want with Washington or Monty. Novgorod starts a Market.

T134: Nothing. Monty has really changed his tune from my last turnset when he was saber rattling about how small our army was:



OMG what a kiss ass! He must see the writing on the wall.

T135: Couple small resource trades. Nothing.

This is the full empire in the clean screenshot format:



Here is what we have troop wise to move on Wash or Monty, in the north and west of them respectively:





I think Knights will be more than enough military power for now. I think we should go Theology --> Education (more research) --> Banking. Banking will let us get more money and let us build Forbidden Palace, the key ICS wonder.

I think that is the right save.

 

[Aretii]

Nicely done! I got it, will play and post today.

 

[Kylearan]

My apologies for going AWOL - I had been sick, and during the time I haven't been sleeping I had to care for my family which was sick as well. That hasn't really been fun... Anyway, I'm okay now again, and I'll try to catch up on what happened while I was away and will comment later.

 

[MuLepton]

Nice work, Gold! Aretii, who will you be going for? Washington? Monty? Both?

 

[Aretii]

I'm really sorry, my night ran super long. I just got back from a very hectic six hours. I will play and post first thing in the morning.

I plan to gun for whomever seems like a better target. That will probably be Washington.

 

[SleepingMoogle]

No problems Kylearan, RL happens to everyone now and then.

1277 horses now? Oh dear.. perhaps we can stampede them over a city or two?

 

[Kylearan]

Good work getting rid of Wu!

Am I reading this right, that we still haven't chosen our two policies yet? I'll have a look at the save when I get home from work and see if I can come up with a suggestion, whether to take them now or save them for later eras - although with us expanding to more cities in the meantime, I'm not sure that's a good idea.

GES, you didn't use the great scientist, right? I guess it's too late to use him for bulbing Chivalry, now that we've already invested research into it. Using him for an academy is a waste IMHO, so we should use him for bulbing the next big military tech (and *really* use him then! ). Again, I'll come up with a suggestion when I've taken a look at the save.

The roster has become quite chaotic (MuLepton -> SleepingMoogle -> Gold Ergo Sum -> Aretii). My suggestion would be that we assume Aretii and I have swapped and continue "normally" from then on, meaning that I play after Aretii and then SleepingMoogle is up after that. Any objections?

Roster:
Kylearan -> on deck
Aretii -> now playing
SleepingMoogle -> playing after Kylearan
Gold Ergo Sum
MuLepton

 

[MuLepton]

No objections to the roster, looks fine for me.

As for policies: I think the we'll have to decide on
* either going deeper into honor
* going into liberty, aiming for meritocracy (will be nice for ICS)
* saving up for order.

The last is probably the worst idea, considering we'll keep adding cities - unless we conquer and puppet everything instead of founding new cities ourselves/annexing.

As for the scientist, definitely bulb instead of academy. I think the two most sensible choices are:
Save him for gunpowder (we'd need to research ... engineering and physics at least) or bulb banking right away (for Forgotten Palace).

 

[Gold Ergo Sum]

We need Theology and Education to get to Banking, but I do think Banking might be worth it.

I didn't bulb Chivalry because it was only a 7-turn research or something. No need. I prefer to save the GScientists for the real big techs at the end of the beeline. We will be able to convert our Horsemen to Knights and just stomp face very soon.

And we have two policies still to be bought. Meritocracy seems like the right choice, if we cannot make it to the Industrial era before expansion.

 

[Aretii]

Guys, rather than keep pushing my turns back and back, I've decided to step down. I'm currently in a very high-intensity academic situation, and even when I do manage to steal a few hours of leisure here and there, the last thing I want to do after working on projects and papers all day is engage in a very planful, deliberate, and cerebral activity like Civ. Forcing myself to the game isn't doing my play or writing any favors. This SG deserves better than me phoning in my turns and reports. I apologize for the inconvenience, and hope for the chance to play with the community again when my life gets less hectic.

Kylearan, I'm happy that you're feeling better. My best wishes go out to your family.

 

[Kylearan]

Aretii, sad to see you go - but real life always takes precedence. Good luck with your academic endeavours!

I see the save, and will likely play tomorrow if I'm unable to squeeze in my turns today (probably not).

 

[SleepingMoogle]

Good luck on your studies Aretii, and thanks for playing!

I think we should be fine continuing with 4 players for now. Unless an easy substitute is found?

 

[Kylearan]

I've played my turns, but the report has to wait until tomorrow - gotta go to bed. Teaser:

who will you be going for? Washington? Monty? Both?

Both, actually. Declared on Monty on the inherited turn, and on Washington five turns later. Warring on a single front only would have been too boring...

 

[SleepingMoogle]

Sounds like I'll inherit something interesting.

 

[Kylearan]

These were busy and fun turns! First, I took Liberty and Citizenship as our policies on our way to Meritocracy. Since we've decided to go the ICS route, this is much stronger than the Honor tree. As discussed, I kept the great scientist to be used for Banking later. During my turnset, we finished Chivalry and Theology and are in the process of researching Education, so the next player should be able to bulb Banking.

When looking at our current deals, I notice we are selling 113 horses to the AIs! That's...not right. I decide not to sell anything to the AI on my turnset to make up for this.

We also have lots of money in our bank. I notice we have no furs, but that there's furs to have on our northeastern peninsula. Barren lands, but with fish and deer, it will work fine for an ICS city, so I buy a settler in Rostov to settle that site.

Then I notice that Novgorod is working an unimproved fish hex, so I start a work boat in Istanbul to rectify this.

While scrolling around the map, I saw this:



With so many units around, I don't know why we should wait for Chivalry. I dial up Monty and immediately declare, still on the inherited turn. I kill a scout and a spearman, capture a worker and bombard Texcoco. This also completes a mission I didn't know about from Tyre, a militaristic city state - we are now allies!

We also have a lot of units in the north, so I think I will declare on Washington as well in the near future and shuffle some units around in preparation for this. I mean, we have two great generals, so we need to fight two wars, right? But since Washington has a lot of units running around our territory, I need a couple of turns preparation time.

Phew, now I'm finally ready to end the inherited turn!

Turn 136: Apart from some bombardment damage, nothing happened in the interturn. That means after some more bombardment from our catapults, our sword puppets Texcoco. I decide not to raze it, as it has spices we don't yet have our own source of.

Turn 137: Geneva and Rome make peace. Whatever. Tyre, our new ally, is successfully fighting off some of Monty's units, and we get Chivalry! I upgrade one of our horsemen to a knight and shuffle units around.

Turn 138: Two more horsemen get upgraded, and our army slowly advances through rough terrain on Tenochtitlan.

I found Yarolslavl, on the deer near the furs:



Turn 139: Rome and Bismarck make peace. I kill a spear with a pike.

Turn 140: Novgorod loves the king, and Rostov wants dyes.

After some turns of preparation, I think I'm no ready to declare on Washington as well. The war against Monty isn't exercising our army enough, and this turn I have the opportunity to knock out so many American units, I just can't pass this up:



Three American archers at Helsinki ripe for the taking, as well as some weak units in the Lhasa/Texcoco area, and our main attacking force being at Boston, I declare war. We lack a catapult at Boston, but knights and swords should be sufficient to take the city! During this turn, I kill 2 archers, 2 spearmen, 1 warrior and 1 scout.

Turn 141: Monty asks for peace, and offers 65g, 6gpt, cotton, open borders and peace with our two allied city states. No buddy, that's not enough - I'm standing at the gates of your capital, man!

This turn, I kill 3 archers and a scout, and upgrade another horseman.

Turn 142: I lose our first unit in this war, a pike at Philly that got overrun by several units. We kill 2 jaguars, 3 spears and a warrior, and raze Boston.



Since there's no luxury there we need, I think it's better to raze'n'replace, as settlers are cheaper than courthouses and we don't suffer the unhappiness in the meantime.

Turn 143: We kill another spear, and set Philadelphia ablaze.



I move in another knight to hunt down the American catapult that is behind Philly next turn.

Turn 144: We get a horseman from Dublin! Thanks. We kill another warrior, and spawn our third great general! I suggest we use him for a golden age, but maybe we should wait until Chichen Itza is finished.

Turn 145: We get a horseman from Tyre! Uh...thanks again I guess, although we're hurting badly paying for all these units. We kill another spear, capture a settler and puppet Tenochtitlan (the screenshot got lost, sorry)!


And that concludes my turnset. I lost 1 pikeman and killed 2 scouts, 3 warriors, 5 archers, 9 spearmen, 1 catapult, 3 workers, 1 settler, puppeted 2 cities and razed 2 cities. Thanks to my predecessors for building me so many toys to play around with! Here's the current map:



Since the turns took so long, I didn't have a look on city MM much - the next player should probably take care of that better than I did. We finished some marketplaces and I started us on colisseums and circusses for happiness. Our workers are busy constructing trade posts and a road to Bejing.

We probably have too many units - we might thing about disbanding some? We also need a medic, I completely forgot to make one. We have lots of promotions still unused though. One of our catapults is on its way to Washington, and after some turns of healing, the next player should have no problems of puppeting Washington and razing Teotihuacan.

We need to re-found several cities in open spaces sooner or later, but we need more happiness for that. When education comes in, remember to bulb banking and get up the Forbidden Palace ASAP.

Roster:
Kylearan -> just played
Aretii ->
SleepingMoogle -> UP NOW
Gold Ergo Sum -> on deck
MuLepton

 

[MuLepton]

Oh, very very nice! We'll need a few settlers to fill out that vast empty expanse that used to be America (when our happiness allows it)!

After we clear out Washington, Tlaxcala and Teotihuacan, should we try for peace or finish Monty and Washington off? I'm leaning towards the latter, since New York sits in very defensible terrain right next to Rome...

 

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I say, in my best Mortal Kombat voice: "FINISH HIM!"

Great turns Kyle. Glad to see us pressing an advantage.

Rather than deleting units, I think we should just get aggressive and keep destroying Rome and then Biz and then Hiawatha and if we lose many units, just make peace.