RBC-15G Napoleonic Conquest - Prussia

[Justus II]

Last but not least (well, maybe we are the least…) of the Napoleonic series, this thread is for the Prussian team. We are playing this SG at Demigod level, going for either a Victory Point (60,000 VP) or Domination (40% Land/40% Pop) Victory. A couple key rules for this conquest are NO SETTLERS (what you see is what you get) and NO CULTURE FLIPS, in fact culture borders remain intact after capture. Also, most people are familiar with the first-turn diplomacy bug, so for this series we’ve agreed not to accept any compensation for alliances/MPPs signed on the first turn. For more overall details about the scenario, see Kylearan’s introductory post
Here

NOTE: I made sure to load a Standard-size map prior to starting the Conquest, to counteract the Map Size Bug. The map dimensions (74x100) actually scale closer to a small than a standard, but with so much land area, I expect it would play like a standard, and it’s probably the fairest basis for comparison.

Roster:
Justus II
Kylearan
LKendter
Dwip
DeceasedHorse ??

Still awaiting confirmation from DeceasedHorse. Otherwise we could probably just go with 4. Because the scenario only runs 96 turns, several of the other teams took less than 10 turns each. I’m leaning toward 6 or 8 turns per player, 6 would be one calendar year (turns are every other month). It will depend on how many players we end up with, but I’d like everyone to get at least three rounds in.

 

[Justus II]

Prussia starts out in pretty good shape, but unfortunately, doesn’t have a whole lot to look forward to. The good news is our infrastructure is excellent, with room to grow. All 9 of our cities have at least Barracks/Granary/Temple/Market/Library/Courthouse, and most have banks, several have Cathedrals, Coloseums and a University. We have all strategic resources, with some spares (although everyone seems to have all resources in this game), and start with 3 luxes, and another three we could trade for. We are in good shape on the happiness front, and can grow for a while without real worries. We start with 300 gold, and +9gpt at 50% research, with room under the unit support cap. We are in a Monarchy, but have the Republic tech (everything from the standard Civ Ancient and Middle Ages tech trees, actually), so changing governments is an option, we seem to have the happiness to support it. Corruption currently isn’t too bad, our worst city (Konigsburg) is losing 40%, and all cities have a healthy food surplus.

 

[Justus II]

Now for the bad news. Our military is currently made up of 12 Musketmen (Civ-standard 2.4.1), 2 Cannon, 3 Cuirassier (an improved Cav, 5.4.2 vs. 5.2.2 for normal cav, but cost 110), a Troop Transport (like a galleon) and 3 workers. Enough to garrison, not enough to conquer. Nationalism offers everyone their unique infantry units (which France already has). Unfortunately, our Fusilier (4.4.1 for 70) is arguably worse than the default Musket infantry (3.5.1) for a primarily defensive unit. The Austrians are in the same boat, and the Ottomans and Spanish are actually worse (3.4.1), but theirs are cheaper. France gets (and has at start) the Voltiguer, at 6.5.1, and Britain gets a Redcoat at 5.6.1. The correlation of forces doesn’t get any better from there, as the main powers get Elite infantry at the next tech (Advanced Tactics), like the French Imperial Guard (8.8.1 with an extra hit point). We get…. Nothing. We can (eventually) get the Grand Batteries, an upgraded cannon (12.1.2) for only 50 shields, like a short-ranged Artillery. On the military side, that may be our best option.

I mentioned there are no settlers, and there’s also no Great Wonders, but a couple small wonders, the Naval Academy (+1 Naval movement, free Frigate every 6 turns), and General Staff School (Pentagon). There are several naval units around, but I don’t see us getting too involved in Naval warfare. And, through some cruel twist of fate, we have no possibility for a Golden Age (everyone else but Spain can, even the non-playables!).

Finally, there is the historical disadvantage of Prussia: Location, Location, Location. We are surrounded with potential enemies. We have superpower France to our west, the sleeping giant Russia to the east, and Austria to the south, who’s fairly comparable to us. The two ‘easy’ targets, Denmark and Netherlands, are in locked alliances with France and Britain, respectively, so we need to be careful about going after either one of those.

Either way we go, I think we have to research Nationalism first, and as quickly as we can, not just for the ability to build the new units, but also to enable drafting and mobilization. With no GA, and most of our infrastructure already in place, I see us using a lot of Mobilization to compensate. And we have the happiness to offset some judicious drafting as well. Meanwhile, we need to get a few more workers out and focus on growing our population, to make the most use of that infrastructure. We don’t really have much offensive punch right now, and I don’t see any objectives worth fighting for at the moment. Austria does have a single gem site, and a possible dye colony, towards Venice, but it would take a major incursion to get there, and I think we can easily trade for some luxes as we go. The first turn is likely to see some wild AI diplomacy, but I think we’d be better off trying to avoid foreign entanglements initially and see how the balance of power shakes out before choosing sides.

What thoughts does everyone else have? Also, what about swapping to Republic? If we’re going to do it, it ought to be early (maybe turn 2 after rushing some workers). We’d have to deal with War Weariness at some point, but I think we probably have enough happy buildings to handle it.

 

[Dwip]

"I wonder if he's started the thread yet?" I think. Heh.

Checking in. I'll see if I can't offer some interesting, witty, and informative commentary later at some point.

 

[LKendter]

6 would be one calendar year (turns are every other month).

This would work well for number of turns

 

[Kylearan]

Hi,

excellent posts, Justus! I think I agree with you: Let's wait and grow a bit to see what will happen on the diplo front before we will choose sides. And I'm all in favor for revolting to republic ASAP, after rushing some workers.

You're porbably right that artillery (again) will be our best bet; my only worry is that researching the techs and building a sizeable force might take us too long before France has piled up enough VPs to win. This will be challenging...and therefore interesting.

6 turns per player sounds good to me.

-Kylearan

 

[LKendter]

I am opposed to Republic. This is like all the conquests and simply about fighting, fighting, and figthing.

I don't want to deal with war weariness.

 

[Kylearan]

Regarding war weariness, I just had the thought that Prussia might "remember" war weariness from "before" which could come back once we declare war? If France starts with max WW, something like this could be possible for Prussia too, couldn't it? That of course would be ugly.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Don't worry, France starts at max WW due to the locked war, not because of some mystical memory. Was exactly the same in the W/E Rome versions of FoR.

 

[Justus II]

France's max WW is due to the locked alliances/locked wars, which Civ interprets to be maxed out (why not, if you are always going to be at war). I'm concerned about WW, although I think we could handle it. We have a decent 'happy base'.

One question I'm not as sure on is how it handles WW when you declare on/are declared on by an alliance. For example, if we declare on Netherlands, that would be WW against us, but then that forces England and Portugal (locked allies) to declare on us. Does that provide War Happiness? Or does it count as us declaring on all three, in which case we face triple war weariness? If it's the former, WW should actually be in our favor, as this game tends to involve multiple alliances, and if it's forcing multiple countries to declare on us, that should offset any WW we build up on our own. If it's the latter, it would quickly get crippling. Of course, then we also have to look at the flip side, if we ally with someone (let's just say Russia, for example) and they get into a war with France, then that triggers us to declare on France, and probably Denmark too, so now we have 2 opponents generating WW for us? We may be better off avoiding the whole mess. I know France starts in Republic, and Doc and a few others said it was manageable, but if we don't start there, maybe we don't want to bring it on ourselves.

The other reason I'm less enthusiastic about switching, after thinking it over last night, is the anarchy. With such a short scenario (96 turns max, and that's assuming we keep France from 60,000 VP before then), do we want to take 6-7 turns of production away at the very beginning? It may net us more gold, long-term, but we usually end up using that to rush shields, so why give away 6 turns of shield production just to get more gold to use to buy shields later? In a short-term game, the payoff may not be worth the cost.

Especially early on, I think we need to try and crank out as many (vet) muskets as we can, so we can upgrade when we get Nationalism, as all the ones we start with are regulars anyway. Besides, being in the middle of everyone, the last thing we want is to go through an anarchy and end up (even temporarily) as the weakest military around.

 

[T-hawk]

With France on Sid, we stayed in Republic the whole time. The war weariness was painful but manageable, but only because we had six luxuries and most of our cities started with cathedrals and colosseums. Prussia doesn't get all that, I don't think.

My understanding regarding war weariness is that it's always tracked separately for all your rival civs, then added together to apply to your cities' happiness. Declaring war via locked alliance is the same as triggering an MPP - the enemy declares on you, so you get the war happiness boost. You can probably easily avoid serious WW problems in this scenario, since you don't have any locked enemies.

That said, I'd recommend just staying in Monarchy. Republic's only real advantage is economy, and economy just isn't very important in this scenario. The tech tree is quite short, and the techs are marginally helpful at best. In the standard game, Republic is the path to get a big payoff from cavalry, railroads, and factories sooner; but this scenario really doesn't have any big advantage to be had from a technology lead.

Just my 2 gold.

 

[Justus II]

@T-hawk, thanks for the clarification! I generally avoid MPPs in regular civ, so I wasn't sure how that would work. Prussia does have cathedrals or colosseums in most cities, but only a few have both, and we only have 3 luxuries. I'd agree that the payoff is probably not worth the loss of 6 turns worth of early production in this case.

I sent a PM to DeceasedHorse, but haven't gotten a reply, if he does respond before we get through the first rotation, I'll add him to the end. I'll start this off later tonight, so if anyone has any further suggestions, let me know. And we will use 6 turns per round, so everyone should get 3-4 rounds in.

 

[Justus II]

Pre-Turn: I had already kind of mapped out in my mind what I wanted to build, a few of the higher-food cities pumping out workers, the rest Muskets, maybe a Cuirassier in Berlin. However, as I started swapping production, I saw an option I had completely overlooked in my pre-game analysis, the Forbidden Palace. I guess I assumed, since I didn’t see it in the tech tree, that it wasn’t available for this conquest, or whatever. Anyway, now I had an interesting decision to make right off the bat. Looking at the map, and the cities, I narrowed it down to a few choices:

Frankfort would benefit the most from erasing corruption, and had plenty of productive tiles to work, but was right on the French border. If we build there, we’ll really need to defend it.

Leipzig was another choice, very productive, smaller (size 6) but could grow fast, and a couple steps in the direction of Austria, which I think sooner or later we’ll want to expand into. However, it’s quite close to Berlin, minimal corruption, and not too many tiles to work as it grows.

Stettin was my third option, as it can generate decent shields, even more when the tiles get improved, it’s a few tiles closer to our holdings in East Prussia, and has plenty of room to grow.

So, with the assurance of a definite maybe, I started the FP in Stettin. The good thing about 6 turns per round is that we can discuss this in time to swap it over to a curias.. Cursiear… Corsair… Prussian Cav if the next leader has a better idea. (you know, I took 4 years of German in High School, but these unit names don’t look German to me!).

Otherwise, Berlin, Hamburg, and Frankfort work on muskets, and I shuffle tiles until everyone else can pop out a worker in the next turn or two.

Diplomacy: I think everyone was in agreement that we would be best served to sit out the first round of wars while building up our army, so I went into diplomacy with the objective of getting as much cash as I could without getting us overly entangled (no Alliances or MPPs). I could have gotten some spare change by selling ROPs to the minor powers, but we’re not big enough to bring in serious cash, and I thought that would just be one more entanglement. I did decide to sell some of our resources/luxuries, as long as we had a direct trade route (actually, they all have at least 2 routes). We don’t intend to declare on any of them, and if they declare on us, our rep is intact.

First was France. I trade our only Furs (we have another to hook up) for gems, netting 4gpt and some insurance. Russia gets spare Wines for 190g (no gpt available). Sweden and Denmark each buy horses for 140g. We now have 770g, and an income of +132 with no science. We want Nationalism, but we know France has it, and once they break the monopoly, it’ll probably be cheaper to buy it than research it ourselves, so I’m going to hoard cash until then, and then we can deficit-research our next tech.

Finally ready to hit enter.

IBT: Um, why did the Dutch just move a cav next to Hamburg? No Diplomacy notices at all? This is not what I expected. Leipzig-Worker>worker, Hannover-Worker>worker. Konigsberg kicks off WLTKD.

Mar, 1800: OK, the Dutch also moved a Frigate north, and now I remember they are in locked war with Denmark, so hopefully they are just cutting across our territory. I shift a cav and a cannon to Hamburg just in case.
IBT: Now the diplomacy starts. Dutch (now) ask for an ROP and alliance vs. Danes, I decline. Brits are next, asking for the same deal, I trade World Maps instead (worthless in this scenario, BTW). Spain allies with Britain and declares on France. French come knocking, asking for an ROP and an MPP (curious, I see if they’ll throw in Nationalism, and they would!), but I decline. They also have a worker for sale, but I hold off, I’m pretty sure they started with at least three, so it’s probably OK, but I want to wait until Nationalism breaks before spending any gold. Konigsburg-worker>worker, Danzig-worker>worker, Posen-worker>Musket.

May, 1800: Some more MM and worker action, Leipzig is now an every-turn worker farm.
IBT: Portugal trades WM, Denmark asks for alliance vs. British (no thanks), Russia allies w/ Spain, declaring on France. Leipzig-Worker>worker, Hannover-Worker>Musket. Denmark declares on Spain (alliance kicking in).

Jul, 1800: Move some workers around quietly, trying to look invisible.
IBT: Alliances continue to form: Austria w/France vs. Russia, Sweden w/Russia vs. France and Sweden w/Russia vs. Austria. Berlin-Musket>musket, Leipzig, Konig, Danzig all worker>worker.

Sep, 1800: Check techs again, still no movement.
IBT: Spain w/Sweden vs. Austria, Austria wants to trade TM (OK), Ottomans want MPP, ROP, and us to pay 7gpt for the privilege, I trade WMs as a consolation prize. Kingdom of Naples gets in the game, allying w/Spain vs. Austria. WLTKD breaks out in several cities as our other fur comes on line. Leipzig-Worker>worker, Hamburg-Musket>Musket, Frankfurt-Musket>Musket.

Nov, 1800: Still nothing, we could buy Nationalism outright, but at monopoly price it’s 1200g +104gpt, it has to break sometime.
IBT: Leipzig-worker>worker, Kongisberg and Danzig-worker>Musket, we have plenty of workers now.

Jan, 1801: Finally, some trading, but not quite what I hoped. Looks like Austria played middleman, and has both Nationalism and Naval Tactics, as do both England and France. I was hoping one would break, and we could get a 2-fer.

Let’s see if I can clarify the current diplomatic situation:

 

[Justus II]

Seriously, there are two major factions. On the one side, England (with Portugal, Naples, and Netherlands locked in tow) is allied with Spain, who is also allied with Russia and Sweden. The other side is France (with Denmark), and Austria, although Austria has avoided getting into war with England. So far, the Ottomans (and us) are sitting it out.

Austria has joined Britain and France in the tech leaders club, with both techs. We can buy either one for approx. 1400g, or 75gpt. We could make some of that back in resale, although the Ottomans are the richest with 400g, several of the others have 170-200 each. We could wait one more turn, hoping the Ottomans (or someone else) can buy one of them, but not the other, creating a 2-fer opportunity. I’ll leave the tech trading to Kylearan, so we can discuss it.

We are now at 17 workers, so other than Leipzig (which needs reset every turn, but easily pulls 10spt and 10fpt), I’ve switched all the cities over to Muskets (soon to be Fusilers). Our FP is due in 11, maybe a turn sooner after growth. If you don’t like the location, it can still be swapped to a cav or cathedral, but I think the sooner we get it up, the better. Other than the (now redlined) Dutch cav, I haven’t seen any units even approach our borders, so I don’t know how the fighting is going, other than the French seem to have razed Milan (Naples).

We do need to discuss our eventual target, although for the near term I think we still have some building to do. Austria provides the most tangible rewards, with cities near enough to our core, including 3 VP sites, and a couple luxuries near Venice. I had also thought about a quick strike on the Dutch, they only have the one city and have to be getting pressure from the French as well. It’s close, and a VP site. The down side, of course, is they’re locked allies with Britain, but if we can hold off their landings long enough to take the Dutch out, we can probably get peace. Either way, we need some more military first.

ROSTER:
Justus II -> Just played
Kylearan -> UP NOW
Lkendter -> On Deck
Dwip -> Confirmed
DeceasedHorse – Awaiting Confirmation

THE SAVE:

 

[LKendter]

Jan, 1801:

I would suggest eneding the turns with Nov. That is much easier to me then to play one turn of the next year.

I had also thought about a quick strike on the Dutch,

Can't agrue with a VP site. France will take it soon enough if we don't We DON'T want France to get more VP!

 

[Kylearan]

Got it.

Quick strike against the Dutch while we're building up our "real" military sounds good to me, although I don't fear any British landings until we can make peace so much as the British buying more civs against us. But I haven't taken a real look at the save yet to have a thorough opinion on that.

It will take probably a few hours until I can start playing, so feel free to post more opinions until then.

-Kylearan

 

[Justus II]

Got it.

Quick strike against the Dutch while we're building up our "real" military sounds good to me, although I don't fear any British landings until we can make peace so much as the British buying more civs against us. But I haven't taken a real look at the save yet to have a thorough opinion on that.

It will take probably a few hours until I can start playing, so feel free to post more opinions until then.
-Kylearan

Alliances are certainly a threat, but I think we can minimize our risks. England obviously can't buy in France, and Austria is already at war with several British (non-locked) allies, so I think it's only a matter of time before they declare on one another. That leaves Russia. England is broke (spent everything to get Nationalism, I assume) but has the 2 techs. If we can broker the techs, and ensure Russia buys them (cheap, if necessary), I think we can take away England's leverage. Any minors they buy in would have to march across one of the majors, (who they'd be at war with), so I think we're safe there.

EDIT: My other concern is timing, I'd hate to declare war and weaken them, just to see France finish them off! I'd investigate to see what their defenses are (sorry, I should have done that on my turns), then if we can pull it off, maybe rush a couple more cav and try to take them as quick as possible. I think there was a spot where we could hit it in 1 turn from our borders, or at least we can scout the French side and try to find a window when there's no French troops approaching.

@LKendter-I guess I was thinking since I started with a January turn, I'd hand off on one. I haven't done anything, other than a couple worker moves. If it makes more sense for everyone, we can hand off on November turns.

 

[Kylearan]

I investigate Amsterdam, and it has three musketmen (1 wounded vet, 2 regular), one cannon and a troop transport in it, with finishing another musket in two turns. The Dutch have horses, and their temple/marketplace/cathedral/colisseum combo gives them 9 happy faces.
I wake up our cuira...curi...our cavalry (definately not a German word! ) and move them towards Amsterdam. I decide it's better to capture Amsterdam sooner rather than later, so I rush two additional cavalry and hope that's enough.

(I) Sweden, Naples vs Denmark. Dutch, Spain vs Austria(!)

March: Moving cavalry into position. No new civs have nationalism; I don't feel like buying it yet, we don't need it immediately.

(I) Britain, Dutch vs Austria. Portugal, Austria vs Spain. The Dutch troop transport leaves Amsterdam. In exchange, a redlined Dutch cav enters the city.

May: Now Spain knows nationalism. I do the following trades:

500g, 42gpt to Austria for naval tactics.
NT, 190g to Spain for nationalism.
NT to Denmark for 11g, 16gpt, 1 worker.
NT to Ottomans for 293g.
NT to Portugal for 244g.
NT to Sweden for 195g.

I rushed two additional cavalry with the money; sorry guys for burning our money, but I want Amsterdam Real Soon(TM).

(I) Austria, France vs Portugal.

July: I declare war on the Dutch, which puts us also at war with Britain, Portugal and Naples. We take Amsterdam, capturing a cannon, and lose one regular cavalry. Unfortunately I was too stupid to capture a Dutch worker before capturing the city, so it is now gone.

(I) Denmark, Austria vs Russia. Ottomans, France vs Sweden.

September: I distribute our cavs along the coast as defense against Britain.

November: A Danish cav has moved suspiciously near one of our workers at a choke point, so I guard the worker with a musket.


I stopped here so Lee won't be confused. Last turn, nothing had been changed on the tech front, but I haven't looked this turn. I also haven't mobilized or drafted yet; Amsterdam is building a market at the moment for happiness.

We're actually second in VPs at the moment, behind France and in front of Britain.

Roster:
Justus II
Kylearan
Lkendter --> UP NOW
Dwip --> on deck
DeceasedHorse --> in limbo?


-Kylearan

 

[Kylearan]

I'll be away for the weekend, so please skip me in the unlikely case the game returns to me on Saturday.

 

[LKendter]

I will try to squeeze into tonight. This will be a building turn unless forced. I will try for quick peace on the England group.

I am glad we snuck in a quick city. Another city for production and a VP source helps us a lot.