RBC13B - Crazy Cordovans

Too bad about Orleans, I had forgotten that. The Leo's effect would have been nice, but not critical, as our regular warriors are doing just fine as MPs. The sad part is, Joan spent all those sheilds, and she won't live long enough to see the first Crusader! :lol:

As for the tech steal, you should have the choice of Western Church or Middle Class. It would actually be cheaper to steal from Germany, but I don't think we want to chance a war with them. I was thinking Western Church, as we are still up Polearms and Divine Right on Germany (and Divine Right on Poland) and so should be able to cash them in for the Western techs pretty easy once it's unlocked.

@Charis: I know the feeling, I wanted to get this one completed, and am working on posting my Epic report this morning, as my wife also has plans for this evening (she needs me to reformat the hard drive on her PC).

I also wanted to thank Arathorn and Corrado again for your patience.
 
Just wanted to let you know I'm still working on the Sid game tonight. It was too fun to stop after 5 :P Cordova is next but that means another 24-48 hrs, and I wanted to let Corrado either swap with me if he's idle or give Arathorn a nod to skip me if he's tired of these delays :p Otherwise I'll follow up Justus' aggression with more of same when I do get to this.
(A big demo at work tomorrow precludes the stay-up-TOO-late option tonight)

Charis
 
I'm willing to swap out; I could get it late tonight.
 
I know Charis is under the gun. Corrado, you go ahead and play tonight and we'll let Charis catch up on some other games first. We can either make it a skip or a swap after you've played. Since there's only 4 of us, a skip makes people up again soon, which is both good and bad.

Anyway, right now....

Charis -- on deck? skipped?
Corrado -- UP NOW
Arathorn -- on deck?
Justus -- relaxing after a job well done

Arathorn
 
Pre=turn:

Well, actually, I don't see any reason not to start the war right now. Armies are ready to move, and giving France another turn just means more production for them.

An Immediate steal against France succeeds, and we now have Western Church. Well, then, I guess we do this the old fashion way- call Joan up and punch her in the nose.

Give Germany 11 gpt for Monasticism. 11 gold to England for Feudalism, and then another 11 gold for Chivalry. :eek: That's some cheap techs. Had I realized, I would have traded real techs to Germany for Mon. Ah, well.

Time to :hammer:!

Army #2 kills 2 pikes and a knight, takes Ghent.
Ansar kills spear in Ampurias.
Lose an Ansar but Army#1 and 2 more Ansars kill 3 pikes and take Orleans.
Sword captures 2 workers and occupies France's iron.

IBT: France diddles its units around, but unless moving one's workers to safety is the new definition of "counterattack", there is little to report.

1128 AD (2): Madrid Town Hall->Blacksmith.

Rush an Archer in Verdun to free up the Ansar on guard duty.

Wreck two Ansars and Army #3 (red-lined, all), but kill 3 pikes and take Rhiems.

Sword kills Spear in Ampurias, and we take that back.

IBT: More French dithering. They have a huge spear stack moving through our lands, but spears aren't going to do anything against us.

1131 AD (3): Navarre Town Hall->Sheriff's Office. Valencia Barracks->Sheriff's Office. Seville Ansar->Manor. Santa Maria Town Hall->Sheriff's Office.

Lose an Ansar, but Army #1 and another Ansar kill 3 Pikes and we take Angers.

Hurry Archer in Carmona, which also has an Ansar guard.

Ansar Army #2 kills 3 Pikes, and we take Bolougne.

IBT: 3 French Knights show up out of the fog. Finally! A counter of value!

1134 AD (4) Cordoba Ansar->Ansar. Granada Ansar->Ansar. Malaga Barracks->Archer. Mertola Ansar->Ansar. Carmona Archer->Temple.

Moving Army #3 up to deal with the incoming Knights reveals another stack of 4 knights. But they can't actually attack anything this turn. Army kills 1 knight in the dangerous stack, and it turns out to be the only Knight- 2 horses underneath. Still, with only an regular spear in Venice, that's kind of bad.


IBT: Horse attack kills our spear, and France takes Venice.

1137 AD (5): We learn Assassination. Decide for Seamanship next- Galleys can carry our armies, and harbors will allow us to trade these )#$^)# wines we have sitting around.

Cadiz Settler->Settler. Toledo Blacksmith->Ansar.

Army #1 kills 2 pikes, and Lyons is ours.

2 Ansars kill 2 pikes (one Ansar promotes), and Genoa is ours.

Army #3 kills the 2 horses and retakes Venice.

Ansar kills a Spear defending a Settler.

Ansar army #2 kills 3 pikes in Paris.

3 more Ansars then wound 2 pikes, and kill a spear. Well, crap- no units left to attack Paris with, and there's at least 2 pikes and a spear still inside. Move all units out of surrounding cities and into position to hammer it next turn.

But that means doing something about the 2nd stack in NI; move an Ansar up, kill a Knight; Army #3 leaves Venice and kills the other 2. Now only an Archer is left, and it's in no position to attack anything.

Change of research plan- in looking to trade, found Byz with Seamanship and Middle Class; Abassids with Invention, Seamanship, Middle Class, and Medicine; Turks with Invention, Seamanship, Middle Class, and Medicine. Switch to Theology as something that may actually have trading value. Can do it in 12 turns at -18 gpt.

IBT: Norway offers to trade territory maps; we accept. Apparently, they noticed our scrawling of "norway is Europe's wang!" on the back, because Norway then declares war on us and takes the cities of Ghent and Bologne.

1140 AD (6) Santiago Archer->Temple. Malaga Archer->Archer. Badajoz Ansar->Town Hall.

Bomb Paris. Ansar Army #1 kills a Pike and a Spear; Ansars and swords work together to kill 4 spears, 2 pikes, a sword, and finally Queen Joan. Paris is burning; we get the Cross of Thorns.

IBT: Zerk forces Ansar to retreat. Norway captures Lyon.

1143 AD (7) Cordoba Ansar->Ansar. Seville Manor->Monastery.

Ansar army #3 kills Norwegian sword & spear, recaptures Ghent.

Ansar Army #1 kills 2 Norwegian 'zerks, recaptures Lyons.

Ansar warrior kills Norwegian spear, recaptures Boulougne.

Elite Ansar kills Norwegian 'zerk in the open, no fishie.

Found Ceuta on the ruins of Paris.
Found Tangier in open spaces of old French lands.

Swordsman El Charis Cid picks up the Crown of Thorns.

IBT: Norwegian ships head back home, probably to pick up more units. Hopefully, they'll negotiate for peace for they return.

1146 AD (8) Salamanca Town Hall->Archer. Mertola Ansar->Sheriff's Office. Huelva Archer->Blacksmith.

Elite Ansar fishes again against a Nor spear; gets red-lined for his trouble, but kills the spear.


Yipes! Okay, I'm going to end it here a little early because there's a massive trade possibility, and I want to throw discussion out to the group before we yes/no it.

We can offer the Turks Iron, Wine, and Wool- all of which we have in abundance. In return, they'll give us *either* 70 gpt + 30, or Seamanship + 10gpt, or Middle Class + 10 gpt, or they'll give Invention if we throw in another 50 gold. (Not even all of our current economy will get Medicine.) Unfortunately, no other civ has any one of those techs; Abassids and Byzantines have all of them, and possibly more down one of the paths we can't see.

Sounds like a great trade, right? Items useless to us for lots of loot or a 3rd age tech. Except Turkey has no harbors, so to keep the deal going, we need to keep peace with Germany and Poland.

I see us as having 3 main choices:

1- Don't make the trade, and simply overrun Germany once the gpt deal is up in 12 turns.

2- Trade for Seafaring, build harbors and Galleys, and send our armies south to overrun the Fatamids or make a massive landing to take these artifacts of Christ to their place in Jerusalem.

3- Coast. We're at over 25,000 VP. The next best competitor are the Abassids at 7290. Declare ourselves done with our marauding days, and focus on infrastructure, building the remaining Wonders, and grabbing all possible techs. Either we take the safe road and get Middle Class from the Turks (possibly giving us a good trade possiblity if only one of the 3 has picked up either of the techs it leads to), or we grab all the cash we can, put research of Theology to the max, and hope to get it first, allowing us to trade it at a premium to the Turks, Byz, and Abs.


Personally, I lean towards #3. All of the other middle-age scenarios I've been part of have been :hammer: heavy, and I'd like the chance to actually build some of the 3rd age buildings and Wonders. We're only at turn 100 out of 200, so there's still plenty of time to build lots of buildings and grab all of the techs. And if matters ever get dicey, we can still whack the Fatamids, who have not yet learned Assassination.

Remember, we're still researching Theology, which will hopefully allow us to get more techs in trade in 8-9 turns.

Choose... wisely.

Notes for the next player:
* We have a few Settlers left, and plenty of open space on the German border. I suggest encroaching there.

* The Norwegians still aren't offering peace, but they don't have any units close yet. If more units show up, we may be best off pulling all defense out of the coastal cities and letting them be captured so that our superior ground forces may take them back.

* If we do end up trading with the Turks, sell Iron to the Danes, since that will just use the same trade route. If instead we decide to go to war with Germany, we should decide whether to get Denmark's help or to attack them as well and grab the two cities they have in France.
 
Great job Corrado! Good job on taking as many French cities as possible before taking them out. Was it a variant rule that every player must capture/recapture Venice at least once? :lol:
I had quite a mood swing after reading of Norway declaring, then taking 3! cities in two turns, but it sure was nice to see the next three lines all end in the word "recaptured"!! :hammer:

I'm glad the steal paid off, I knew the other techs would be cheap, but I didn' t know they would go THAT cheap. I was a little nervous after seing the gpt to Germany, as I would have liked them as the next target, but with Norway to deal with I think it'll be alright.

As for techs, it's too bad we can't get a better deal on Arab Medicine, but I really think we need to look at researching that one ourselves. The boost to our core cities from growing would be HUGE. Especially if we are going to go for a builder phase for a while (which I would also like, we've certainly put the hammer to our neighbors, and I would like to see how the rest of the tech tree plays out), the hospitals would be key. Researching ourselves will reduce the eventual cost, and is that much less money in the hands of one of the eastern powers.

I don't have a problem with the tech deal per se, but I think we would have to go into it with the expectation that somewhere in that 20 turns, the trade route WILL get broken, as we are now in the timeframe for the Medieval Sub Bug, when invisible assassins will be roaming around causing the AI to trigger random wars on a regular basis. So I think we will only be able to make one tech deal on credit, and we would be better served to wait until it's a tech we really want, Like Medicine if the price came down, or one we could get a 2-fer on. (Note, I'm not recommending we make a deal and hope/count on it breaking, or any kind of exploit, we just need to accept the fact that if we do any deal with resources to a non-adjacent country, the route will probably get broken by someone else).

As to the wonders, IIRC Theology allows Notre Dame, which is a Bachs, very worthwhile, we should probably start a pre-build right away!
 
Well done, and the Cordovan machine rolls forward. Tough choice on next options. I don't have a strong preference either way. I lean toward the warmongering option 1, but if things are a bit intense 3 will work.

I think it's probably best to continue down the roster at this point, let Arathorn look at the situation plus our input and take it here, with Justus on deck (ie mark the 'swap?' for me above as a skip).

Charis
 
Sounds good. I don't know if I can get to it tonight, but tomorrow night should almost definitely work.

I, of course, lean for option 1, but I can be convinced otherwise. I'm really not fond of the "rest on our laurels" option, as appealing as it may be. BUT, I will go with the will of the team. Give me more feedback, please....

Arathorn
 
In the spirit of Roman emperors at the Gladiator arenas, Finish Him! (Whoever our next target happens to be!) After looking at it some more, I'm inclined to go ahead and kill off Norway/Danes and/or Germans and win this one. We've come this far as conquerors, no point going cultural now. Although I WOULD like to see more of the late-game techs, (and might want to replay this scenario with different objectives to do so later), it would be a pretty abrupt about-face for us now. And since we are already at 25,000 VP, we could well go over just defending ourselves and buying some more techs before we even got to build the wonders. I say get some techs if we can, but prepare for one more campaign to seal the victory. If we get a good opportunity to grab the Danish cities, take the close ones and make a quick peace, then prepare to go after Germany.
 
It was 1161 AD and Abd was in a near-constant state of panic. The war with the Fatimid Caliphate had started so innocently, with a sneak-attack capturing the entire African holdings of the Cordovan people.

It had quickly gone downhill, though. First came the news of the disappearing worker gangs. "Where had they gone?" was the demanded information throughout the palace. Only one answer was possible -- they'd been assassinated by our supposed brethren.

The news had gone from bad to worse with the next dispatch -- two of the other spiritual and politcal leaders of the Cordobans had fallen in a last-ditch desperate effort to defend their cities. He was alone.

Fleeing Cordoba was not an option. The entire countryside was alive with invisible foes. He could maybe find a single empty square but then he would probably attack an unseen foe, being left exposed and naked even if he should win.

The sounds of fighting were close... Cordoba itself was under attack. Pikes clanged, trying to defend against a seemingly infinite flow of enemies. A final knife was raised...Abd screamed...

.

.

.

And woke up. It was still only 1161 AD. He had a full slate of meetings scheduled for the next day and trading always made him nervous. To calm himself, he reviewed events of the previous 15 years.

The Fatimid Caliphate had attacked and had swept aside the meager defenses in his African holdings, but no other problems had been seen on that front. A close watch was being kept for FC ships, but none had so far appeared. A number of assassins had been hired, purely to keep watch for enemy invisible troops, both at home and at abroad. More were in progress. This was necessary to prevent a nightmare scenario from becoming reality.

No long-term deals were made with Germany. According to our trade advisor, both from F4 and specifically, we had no active deals with the Kaiser beyond a peace treaty. War had been honorably declared in 1155 AD and much progress was being made on that front. One German heathen daring to call himself a king had already fallen and the troops were fresh.

Norway was being a pain and had captured a single city so unimportant its name was forgotten. Troops were en route to deal with that threat, too.

Things were pretty stable. The only disturbing item of note was that the time to research Theology had dropped, indicating another civilization had it. Since the Bulgars (The BULGARS??? :boggle:) had started Notre Dame, they were the ones.

Abd was ready. He made some great deals....
Wines, World Map and 55 gold to the Bulgars for Theology.
Theology, World Map, 108 gold and 21 gpt to Byzantines for Invention.
Invention to Kievan Rus for Middle Class, World Map, 8 gold.
Invention to England for Seamanship and 85 gold.

This eliminated Abd's last 20-shield MP option, as his people refused to use classic bows when longbows were available. Ah well, pikes are the same price and about the same value, so some builds were switched over.

It didn't matter, though. The Cordovans were too close to victory. Merely acquiring these techs pushed them well over 28,000.

By 1164, with the razing of another German city and king, it was certain. The world would consider Abd victorious imminently. To further cement it, the Norwegian town was recaptured and we went ahead and bought Medicine, too, for some pittance like all our gold and 33 gpt or something -- just so we could.

And some ansars went silly attacking where they had no business going, were the war to continue.

rbc13b-victorysplash.jpg


Final VP count: 31205 (from just under 29,000 the turn before)
Score: 49928

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/rbc13b-victory.zip

Nobody else had even reach 8000 VPs. Interestingly, though, according to the demographics, we weren't first in any of the really important areas (population, land area, production, GNP, etc.). For a "normal" game, we still had some ground to cover. The two FPs coming with religious persecution (Inquisition) and ??? (Magna Carta), though, would've been hugely beneficial for us.

Great game! Thanks for the fun, all!

Arathorn
 
Cool! Great job, everybody!
 
The news had gone from bad to worse with the next dispatch -- two of the other spiritual and politcal leaders of the Cordobans had fallen in a last-ditch desperate effort to defend their cities. He was alone.
:eek:

OK, you got me, I started to worry after this line! ;)

But good to see you woke up from that nightmare! Great job of trading, techs certainly do add up in this one. A big :goodjob: to the whole team, this was a great campaign, and I really enjoyed it. And for being out in "left field" we didn't have too many worries about the 'big three' running away with it! :lol:

I would still be interested in playing this scenario again in a builder mode, to see how all the late-era techs and wonders play out, although I'm not sure what restrictions we would put in to make that happen/what victory conditions to go for. Anyway, before I get into that I've got to take turns in the Turks game (and finish GOTM, and get started on the new Epic40, and the new Imperia One . . . . ) ;)
 
Excellent Arathorn! Thanks for finishing that up. I'm glad you didn't choose the (cough) 'coast' approach :hammer:

I'm also glad I took the skip and let you have the satisfaction of the win, since I got to do that in the Rus game.

Excellent write-up btw, I did a real double-take on that :P

> Anyway, before I get into that I've got to take turns in the
> Turks game (and finish GOTM, and get started on the new Epic40,
> and the new Imperia One .

Oh boy, the fun never stops! In the next series game I'll have to caution folks (myself at the top of the list) to be careful about dipping too heavily. Glad to see you're in on the Imperium, btw! :goodjob:

Thanks team! Not only did we win as the Conrdovans on a tough level, but we did so quite decisively. I think both our planning and execution were excellent this game.

Charis
 
I'm hoping the games where people are playing the Turks, Byzantines, Abassids, and Fatimids will allow some view into the late-level techs. Those games are taking a much different arc through the game (as they probably should) and so will see different tech levels from the more militaristic-minded games (all the berserker ones, most of the Christian ones, us)....

My thoughts for reaching end-game....
- Play a slower power, like the ones in the east
- Up the VP requirement to 45000 or so (good for lots of reasons, IMO)
- Don't build armies -- that'll really slow down the speed at which conquest can be achieved, making end-techs more likely AND a closer showdown with "the big 3" more likely.

Just some random thoughts on a Monday afternoon. Lots of ways to "force" the endgame techs, but I'm not sure which (if any) of them make sense.

And I'm glad I was able to at least somewhat get a couple of you.... I had to do something to make the write-up interesting. The turns themselves were very straightforward. As Charis said, the culmination of excellent planning and execution from throughout the game. A pleasurable team to play with! Thanks to all.

Arathorn
 
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