RB29c - Cultural Extermination

[Kodii]

Save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/96336/RB29_-_Cultural_Extermination_AD-1855.Civ4SavedGame

sooooo - UP
Ozbenno - on deck
Qwack - ??
sunrise089
Kodii - just played
Swiss Pauli - away until May 28

 

[Kodii]

With the settlers in Bismarck's north, the next player can decide whether or not to found a city north of Murmansk to prevent anyone else from settling there.

Also, the next player can cancel some gifts I sent to JC in an attempt to bring him back to Friendly but failed.

 

[sunrise089]

Nice work Kodii, we seem to have made great progress during this turnset. I'm definately thinking it will be much easier to take out the next two AIs together than the last AI by itself, simply because AIs raising other AI's cities seems to helpful.

The only question I have is why did we end up founding Astrakhan? I know the sign was there, but I could never really figure out why we needed that spot.

 

[Kodii]

I originally settled Astrakhan firstly to put more pressure on Kyoto, but when Kyoto flipped a few turns later, I realized it was somewhat of a waste.

Then again, the tile that Astrakhan was founded on was vacant, and someone could have settled there.

 

[sooooo]

Got it. I'm glad Rheims is finally gone and we settled that city to flip Neapolis.

 

[sooooo]

I have played 5 turns and will play the rest tomorrow because I have a question for the team (after report).

Start by gifting genghis some elephants. I change the sign at Frankfurt to keep, if we get the choice.

Genghis razes Stuttgart, so we found 2 cities in the area with our settlers. Tula is quite lucky - 1 more turn and Caesar's borders would have claimed that spot.



We found Perm'. This city is not optimal because it only puts pressure on Tabriz. However, the optimal city labelled flipper (1S) is still 100% mongolian - we are not putting any culture into that tile. Perm' forces us to approach Old Sarai and Beshbalik from the west only, but puts pressure on Tabriz at least.



Finally, JC recaptured his island city from Bismarck. I gifted GK steel.

Our power towers over everone else's, and we have the production to make more military any time we want. I propose:

Revolt to caste system and universal suffrage, turn both sliders to 0%.

So we buy missionaries, temples and cathedrals, and push into roman and mongolian lands with our CS artists. Rely on the wars to help us with the German lands. I think we should gift more troops to GK rather than JC, because GK likes to raze, not keep.

In order to make our spending efficient, we should decide who between JC and GK is going to take who out after Bismarck dies. I am in favour of siding with Genghis if he is bribable onto JC, because that way there is a possibility that he razes the Island cities which would otherwise be a nightmare to deal with. So I propose we buy cathedrals in the cities bordering mongolia first.

What thinketh ye?

 

[Kodii]

That sounds like a fabulous plan IMHO.

I would side with Genghis also because he is the more powerful of the two when it comes to war. I also think we're doing a better job pressuring on Genghis than we are pressuring on JC. Island razing might be nice too.

Good thing we had those settlers where they were to found Tula. Keep up the good work!

 

[Ozbenno]

I also agree with siding with Genghis against JC (he was bribeable at the beginning of my sets).

Like the plan to revolt to Caste System and Universal Sufferage. Putting both sliders to zero doesn't require much movement these days

Unfortunately I'm not sure how much cash we'd be able to raise though (might need to start employing only merchants in our non-border cities)

 

[sunrise089]

I favor siding eventually with Khan as well. I also share Ozbenno's question about whether or not Universal Suffrage will be helpful to us - if we are only netting 100 gold a turn we won't be able to raise enough money to buy things very quickly.

I do have a pair of questions:

1) Is the timing ideal? To me it would seem to make more sense to keep researching now, and then when Khan and JC take out Bismarck, turn off research after Khan declares on JC - that way we ensure we have a tech or two to trade to Khan.

2) Is our biggest challenge going to be turning Khan's border cities? We only have a limited number of Cathedrals, so are we making best use of them by putting them on the border? Or will other cities prove more of a burden to flip - those island cities if they aren't raised for example?

 

[Ozbenno]

1) Is the timing ideal? To me it would seem to make more sense to keep researching now, and then when Khan and JC take out Bismarck, turn off research after Khan declares on JC - that way we ensure we have a tech or two to trade to Khan.

The timing is not ideal but we have to start a culture crush at some stage and need the buildings to make it worthwhile. We should start cottaging over farms in ex-border cities as well that have enough food (give the workers something to do as well).

There are always going to be reasons to delay. If all the AI are at war, they are not going to be running away with the research in this game.

Having said that, we do need to have techs enough to bribe Genghis (but can always switch back to research where needed). Would be good to get Eifel Tower as well (Electricity? Radio?).

2) Is our biggest challenge going to be turning Khan's border cities? We only have a limited number of Cathedrals, so are we making best use of them by putting them on the border? Or will other cities prove more of a burden to flip - those island cities if they aren't raised for example?

Essentially we can build more cathedrals than we could ever use. We have all 7 religions, we have many, many cities. We could build 7 cathedrals in all the mongol border cities and still have enough to plant on the Roman border cities.

 

[Kodii]

The island cities will be harder to flip as Roman cities than they are if they are Mongolian. Exactly how expensive would the cathedrals be? I guess since our net gpt is pretty low, it could still take a while to finish one.

 

[Ozbenno]

A cathedral is about 1200 gold if you put a few turns of hammers into it (just played a culture game over the weekend).

 

[Kodii]

~12 turns is probably less than the number turns needed to build the cathedrals brick by brick.

Universal Suffrage is probably the way to go, but as was mentioned, we should probably tech a bit more before shutting off research completely. Radio?

 

[sooooo]

We could tech to radio for the eiffel tower, but radio is ~25 turns away, then about the same again to build the wonder. May be better to just get some earlier cathedrals instead.

Building cathedrals brick by brick is only possible in a decent amount of time with slavery. However, slavery prevents us running artists at the same time. With universal suffrage, we can both run artists and get the city improvements.

I think I am going to gift genghis a lot of units in my next few turns. We have many obsolete ones costing us maintenence, which Genghis can upgrade for a very small cost.

 

[sunrise089]

Does Khan still get a big upgrade cost decrease on Prince? I know it's huge on the higher levels, but I'm not sure how it decreases working down towards our level. Universal Suffrage + Caste to run artists sounds like a fine combo. As far as the Tower goes, I'm more or less for going for it. I know it's 25 turns, but it will give us techs to bribe with, and basically a Cathedral we don't have to manually build in every single city, as well as as soon as we flip future ones, right? To me that sounds pretty big. Still, I'm 100% willing to defer to the more experienced players, so if you think it's best to turn off research now, that's OK with me.

 

[sooooo]

Sorry, I am going to have to hand over the save after my 5 turns. Decision of whether to keep researching or stop is Ozbenno's. Still reccomend major gifting of troops to Genghis. I mainly concentrated on missionaries and temples as our power is very high. Novgorod could do with a market.

The Save

 

[Ozbenno]

OK got it. Will be able to play tomorrow night.

 

[Ozbenno]

I had a very disruptive session here so apologies for the brevity and probable nonsensical nature (those with kids will understand)

I'm not entirely convinced on the shutting down research plan just yet, so keep things as they are.

After I'm forced down to 20% science and figure out we can get about 200 gpt and only lose 6 turns of research (electricity in 19 rather than 13) I about face and change. I don't change civis right away as I want some whipping done first.

We get a revolt in Ning-Hsia

We also have a GA sitting around. We need to settle these fellas asap to get max benefit. The only problem is where



This seems the best location at the moment. It can put pressure on two fronts.

Cottages are replacing farms in the interior.

A settler auto-appears here in the icy north. I know its not currently used but I'm holding off settling unless we have to.

JC's war effort is very dissapointing. He has masses of troops in Neapolis. Bismark has 4 rifles in Berlin but JC holes up. Genghis is sending more troops over but they take too long.

I also think we should found a new city somewhere here but not sure where



Well at the end of 10 turns, we've still got 1 turn of anarchy left sorry for the change of heart sunrise

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/88650/RB29_-_Cultural_Extermination_AD-1865.Civ4SavedGame

 

[sunrise089]

No problems with the report Ozbenno. I can barely play video games when my girlfriend is around, I cannot imagine doing so with kids.

"Got it", but I will hold off a bit for comments before playing - I will probably be able to post a report by tomorrow night.

 

[sooooo]

Are you going to play soon Sunrise? Last turnset was over 48 hr ago. Don't think there's much discussion needed - basically we need to ensure Bismarck dies as soon as possible, preferably via Genghis' hands as he is more likely to raze. Buy cultural buildings/missionaries to get cathedrals on the mongolian border.