RB23 - Alex the Decentral....

[Qwack]

Phaylanx are not bad. For attacking cities, they are the same as axes, and they can beat up horse units and be used for hill's defense. I would sugges building more phaylanx's. Should we declare now and take that archer/settler pair from victoria?

 

[darrelljs]

I was sorely tempted, but the economy is really in dire straits. I think we need to lay down some Cottages before taking on any new cities, then nail Victoria (figuratively, of course). That Archer/Settler pair has already Settled, NE of where I took the pick, I think. Happiness is a big issue as well. There is Silver and Fur to be had which will help our happiness issues, but I didn't notice seafood around either site so the cities would be a big economic letdown. Maybe I missed some...a Crab and Silver/Fur sight will pay for itself, and the happiness boost will be huge. Of course, it will be cheaper to just take Victoria's cities

I've got to assume whoever has Music probably has Literature, and will probably beat us to the Great Library. Which stinks, because we haven't levaraged our second trait yet. That said, we have Marble and should at least make a run for it.

Darrell

 

[GreyFox]

Oh, so I am UP. Will play sometime today.

From one perspective, its a good thing Liz settled ... save us the trouble of producing settler

--

 

[ThERat]

From one perspective, its a good thing Liz settled ... save us the trouble of producing settler

You know what is the irony? On levels emperor and above (unless you're alone on an Island/continent) one hardly needs to settle anything except for the first few crucial resource cites and can conquer the rest. This despite the promise that AI won't spam the land with settlers...well, well, well

 

[GreyFox]

Pre-Turn

- We are building a worker ... why? We have lots of worker, plus Vic would no doubt supply us with more
I vetoed it, go for Phanax instead.


Peaceful Years

Made use of the build up peaceful years to spy on England ...

I have also cancelled the gold "tribute" to JC, and later get clams from him. Yeah, I know happiness is a bigger issue, but he don't have any space happiness resources.

War!

Later, I showed Vicky this picture:

She like it so much that she gifted us a worker, and execute a Jew Miss as celebration:

While attacking, Axeman defeats (5.00/5): English Worker at 99.7 percent.
While attacking, Archer defeats (3.00/3): English Jewish Missionary at 99.7 percent.

Later, she even offer us Cantebury as a token of appreciation:

Turn 169 (35 AD)
Axeman promoted: City Raider I
While attacking, Axeman defeats (0.60/5): English Archer at 20.6 percent. <- Ha, its better to be lucky than good!
Axeman promoted: City Raider I
While attacking, Axeman defeats (2.30/5): English Spearman at 72.6 percent.
While attacking, Axeman defeats (2.45/5): English Chariot at 79.5 percent.
Judaism has spread: Canterbury
Captured Canterbury (Victoria)

See the horse archer in the pic? Now you see it ...

While attacking, Phalanx defeats (1.25/5): English Horse Archer at 96.7 percent.

Now you don't.

Phalanx promoted: Medic I
Phalanx promoted: Cover

However, our economy plumet all the way down. Sugest razing future city unless absolutely (like the JewHolyCity).

Situaton at NewCastle:

Yeah, I know, I should have done something, but I was naively waiting for it to grow ... on retrospect, should have went in and razed the city. We don't want it. We simply can't afford to keep it ... but the horse archer there is a bit of a trouble.

In the other news, Khan settled towards us:

Fine, save me one fog-buster. I moved him back towards the palace, just in time to face a barb there.

Also OB'ed with Khan later:

>>> The Save (50AD) <<<

 

[Qwack]

Checked the save. Couple of thoughts...

We should set research on 50% for now on deficit research. This will give us alphabet in 3 turns which is important. We can trade alphabet for all the tech's we are missing this way.

Once canterbury comes out of revolt, we should spam cottages there. Looks like a good commerce city. In Corinth, we should run the plains horse instead of the grassland forest. I also think we should disband the warrior in Thermoplaye on the gold. We have 2 archers in the area incase any barb's show up. Our unit upkeep is a huge 15 gold per turn, so I would disband any units we dont need..

We should definately raze newcastle IMO. In terms of other cities if we continue the war, I would keep london and jewish holy city, raze everything else. Once we start putting some cottages up our economy will be good. If we can take the jewish holy city this war, it would be a huge plus, but I think we may need to declare peace and go after her later.

 

[Ozbenno]

Nice work. Got it and will be able to play today sometime.

 

[darrelljs]

Looks like a good turnset

We are building a worker ... why?

We are working a LOT of un-improved tiles. We need Cottages. The city was at the happiness cap. Victoria's Workers will be needed for Victoria's cities

Darrell

 

[darrelljs]

We should set research on 50% for now on deficit research. This will give us alphabet in 3 turns which is important. We can trade alphabet for all the tech's we are missing this way.

Not only that, it will allow us to extort techs from Victoria when we are ready for a break. She might already have Alphabet (I didn't check). If she does, plus Literature, that is what we should go for. I really, really want the Great Library!

Darrell

 

[Ozbenno]

I disband the warrior firstly, and we're now even at 10% research. . We rock!

In any case I run at 80% for Alphabet in 2 (will use half our funds).

OK, this may be foolish but I trade our only rice to Kublai for wine as we have in 4 cities (now 2) and no health issues.

I press enter...

Look at the situation at Newcastle. I sacrifice our chariot in the hopes it withdraws, it doesn't but reduces the axe to 2.2/5. Two axes and a phalanx win and one axe perishes. Down to one HA, and our phalanx will be able to promote to Formation next turn .

Turn 2 sees Alphabet come in (Julius already has it). Pick Mathematics as I think Currency is in order. I'm going to drop research down to +1gpt at 20%.

Back to Newcastle, Phalanx loses against HA at 87% . We get 32gp compensation after the axe wipes him out.

The trading rounds. That's a lot of techs we're down, lets see what we can get.



Julius has every tech we do so he's no good. Frederick and Kublai only are missing Alphabet (methinks no GL for us). I've stopped here for advise. Two options are to trade alphabet to Kublai and Bismark or to hoard it in an attempt at the GL. I can get the following (Vicky still won't speak to me).

Bismark - Sailing or Iron Working (not both).
Kublai - Meditation and Sailing or Mathematics or Iron Working and Meditation

Obviously trading for Maths means we will be able to get something out of Julius as well.

So best case is Iron Working and Mathematics. I say take it as I can't see us getting GL. Thoughts?

 

[ThERat]

what can we extort from Lizzy before we start trading. I would rather not trade the cheap techs.
We could go for 10 turns peace to extort nice techs and then trade the more valuable stuff with the others

 

[Ozbenno]

Vicky won't talk at all so we can't extort anything from her as yet (or even get peace).

 

[darrelljs]

You know, my experience has been that the AI doesn't research Literature for the GL, but for Music and the free GA. Now, we can be fairly certain someone has that since Homer was born in a distant land, but I still think the GL is possible. We have Marble, Literature is a cheap tech, we'll be able to run deficit research while cracking on Victoria, and we'll be willing to chop forrests to get it out. We're Philosophical and we haven't generated a single GPP . This wonder for us is worth 16 per turn, it will net us many
GS which can pop techs that can be traded in N:1 deals to catch up.

In summary, my vote is that we still go hard for Literature and the GL and try to get Mathematics++ from Victoria for peace (given techs don't count towards WFYABTA).

Darrell

 

[Qwack]

I agree with darrel, I think we have good shot on GL if we're only competing against one civ. It will help us a big amount.

IMO, we should trade alphabet here instead of hoarding it. I dont think AI will go straight from alphabet to literature so I still think we can get GL.. Im pretty sure once AI has math it will go straight to currency or calender instead of literature.. It would be nice to see what we can extort and make deals around that (looks like victoria has currency btw)

 

[darrelljs]

I dont think AI will go straight from alphabet to literature so I still think we can get GL.

Right...the one thing to note though is someone does have Music, and probably went through Literature to get it since that is the cheaper tech. The key is focus. If we make it a priority and chop it out with after deficit research, I think we've still got a good shot at it. In the end it is a risk/reward call. Very real risk, but major reward.

Darrell

 

[Ozbenno]

OK, I'll do the trades, start researching Polytheism and then Literature and see what we can get from Victoria.

More later...

 

[darrelljs]

One thing that slipped my mind is the GL requires a Library in the city. So the opportunity cost goes up a bit although at least if we miss the GL we can run some Scientist specialists. If possible we should try and time the Library to complete with Literature.

Ozbenno got a tough turnset

Edit: Damn, I forgot about the Polytheism pre-req as well. We might want to try picking that up in a trade to save some turns.

Darrell

 

[Ozbenno]

OK checklist for remaining 8 turns.

1. Trade like the tech whore that I am.
2. Get Polytheism from 1 or research it myself
3. Research Literature
4. Build library in Corinth (highest hammer city)
5. Build GL in Corinth

I get Iron Working and Mathematics from Alphabet. Iron is convieniently placed as follows .







No-one will trade Poly so start researching (in 9 turns at -10gpt@50%).

We pick up some pocket money at Oxford.



Last turn Poly comes in and switch to Literature (due in 26) . Library is due in Corinth in 4. I've gone cottage mad but economy still seems to be going backwards.

So from the checklist 1 was done but wasn't great, 2 was done on last turn. All the rest is down to you Qwack! Good luck.

Tech situation is too depressing to post a screen shot of, lets just say we've got nothing to trade and Bismark (industrious) has Literature.

Peace offer.



I'd say probably worth taking and regroup for 10 but could also push on if we wanted and take one more city to get better techs out of her.

The Save

View attachment 138260

 

[Qwack]

Trade situation doesnt matter. The thing which saves every game at this point is the overpowered drama -> Philosophy with great scientist move... Im pretty sure we will be heading down that path soon

Ill need until tonight to play this one.

 

[darrelljs]

Nice turnset, you and Grey Fox did a good job taking it to Victoria. Literature in 26 is going to be a problem though...let's see what Qwack can come up with

Darrell