RBC15c - Russia (DD:Demigod for Domination)

[Jabah]

Anyway, don't ask the spanish to leave if we don't have anough units to kill all invaders during the same turn. We really don't want them to declare war with 4 cavalries in the middle of our very lightly defended cities, it could be REALLY ugly.

Therefore I really favor asking Spain for a MA against Prussia, they will spend a lot of time going to prussia from there and might kill a few unit (and will be closer to our units in case all go wrong).

Jabah

 

[microbe]

I'll play this tonight.

I could MA with Spain, but from my limited experience if a civ has decided to attack you, that wouldn't change their decision.

 

[microbe]

Preturn: Code Civil is known, so I buy it from Spain together with MA and pay 73gpt. Hopefully we'll kill Prussia soon and get the gpt payment back.

Sadly we don't seem to be able to make much out of it, except we can trade to France and get Seapower+gems+60g. But we really don't need those things, and since we'll probably deal with France at some point, I'd rather not let it benefit from this tech, so no trade.

Not sure why we are keeping lux at 20% while we could put it to 0.

Danzig has conscript Fusilier, so our elite cossack attacks twice (across river) and captures the city. The reason I did with the attack was that I do not want to expose our redlined Cossack.

I rush market in Polatsk.

Not sure why we are building cathedrals. I switch many builds to cossacks and rush aqueduct in Pskov and Vilnius by about 600g. Will mobolize next turn.

IBT Spanish cavs head toward Prussia. Sweden/Britian MA vs France and Denmark. France declares on ottoman.

(1)May, 1804AD: I mobolize.

I am not sure if we want to fortify the units on Konigsburg - it is a VP location. So I wake up the Jaeger and move to Danzig.

Those barb camp is very annoying. I send a cossack to clean them up.

Mostly a healing turn.

France has got Code Civil, and also Militay Logistics! But it's not a must-have tech so I pass.

IBT 3 barb horses and 1 warrior die on our cossack and promote it. Another horse pillage road.

(2)Jul, 1804AD: I rush guard in Odessa and Kriyvyy, cossack in Dnepropetrovsk.

IBT Prussia MA with Britian against us.

(3)Sep, 1804AD:

@Stettin: bombard reveals 2hp vet Fusillier and 1hp conscript Fusillier.
Elite cossack 0/2 kills 2hp vet Fusillier.
Same Elite cossack 0/2 kills conscript Fusillier and..



Vet cossack 0/1 kills conscript Fusillier and we capture the city.

I form a cossack army.

@Berlin:
Army 6/4 kills vet Fusillier.
Vet cossack 3/4 kills vet Cuerassier.
Elite cossack 4/3 kills reg Fusillier.
Elite cossack 3/3 kills reg Fusillier.
Elite cossack 0/2 kills conscript Fusillier and we get our second leader:



Vet cossack 4/1 loses to conscript Fusillier and there is at least another conscript Fusillier so we'll have to wait till next turn.

I move the leader to Stettin and form another army.

There is an Austria grenzer next to Berlin.

Clear some barbs.

Spain has momopoly on Artillery Tactics. I won't buy it yet as reselling opportunity is too poor. I'll buy it once it's no longer a monopoly and we can do a 2 or 3-fer on it.

IBT Britian and Kingdom of Naples embargo against us. Watch Prussia and Spain fight. We get Military Acadamy prompt.

(4)Nov, 1804AD: Move cannons into place. Mostly a healing turn. Descroy barb camp.

IBT Austria and Britian embargo against us. Netherlands and Prussia embargo against us.

(5)Jan, 1805AD: brand new army kills 3 conscript Fusillier, still a concript shows on top. The other army kills 4 units and STILL a conscript Fusillier shows! Vet cossack 2/2 kills it and redlined conscript shows. I decide to use the 2hp cossack to attack and we win and capture Berlin.

Artillery Tactics spread around, but the price doesn't drop noticeably. We still need to pay about 100gpt. We can do a 2-fer with France. I think we should do the deal.

Next player should be able to finish Prussia off and get our gpt payment back.

We can start rushing more units.

 

[microbe]

This is the battlefield:

 

[Jabah]

Nice turns, 2cossacks armies are going to bring pain and desolation upon our ennemies.

Speaking of ennemies, looking at the map, I think we should consider Austria as next, that will allow us to dramaticaly shorten our front lines. (and if they are still at war with Naples/Netherlands/England, their units might be either dead/exhausted/far away).

Not sure that we want to fight France, they are too far away and we already seem to be in bad relation with the British coalition (embargoes), no need to be against both. In fact a strategic alliance (or at least 'no aggression pact' - lux trade - tech/gpt) with France might be to consider.

Jabah

Edit : even if Konigsberg (and StPeter) is a VP, it is too close to the front to be left without protection. If we have already an embargo against Sweden/Austria/xxx, no need to give them a good reason to start war. I don't know if Austria (or others) had a 3move units.

We probably still need some workers, the southern (corrupted ?) cities probably could build a few more of those while in mobilisation.

 

[grahamiam]

nice microbe! great leader luck! i think the austrian countryside will make a nice addition, but we should be ever vigilent of the beast to the west (france). maybe we should let the ottomans take hannover and hamburg so we get a buffer zone while taking out the austrian eastern cities? probably not a great idea but may delay the final showdown till we're more prepared. once we annex austia, we should be ready for anyone on this map.

re: konigsberg vp location -> would it make more sense to abandon that city so we don't accumulate vp's in an otherwise useless town? that way, we don't have an empty town hanging out there as a temptation to other civ's. or is the abandon city option not enabled in this conquest?

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Doesn't make sense to abandon a city when we're going for Domination, I think. I wouldn't overdo it with avoiding VPs, just the first 20 turns of Pete were unnecessary.

Great job on the Armies.
I'll rush a couple more Cannons before we buy Art Tactics.

Any objections against signing the Ottos against England? They are the one Civ I don't want to fight right now...and since I completely agree with Austria next, we should sign Ottos here as well.

Got it.

 

[microbe]

I just read that there is no culture flips in this game (Arathorn mentioned it in the Sid game). Is that true? I (and previous player) have been starving down Prussia's cities. Double check and stop that..

Also, since we do not do self research, better sell all the libraries and universities.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

It's not so bad to starve the Prussians, they are unhappy and we'll regrow soon anyway. And, I'm Bavarian

Not sure on selling all Libs/Unis, we could use a couple culture expansions.

What about the MilAc in Kiev, btw? Don't see us building many Armies, but we could use the strength boost...

 

[microbe]

I'd rather rush with a leader. Cossack is great for leader fishing.

Cultural expansion: I didn't check, but I would assume most cities with lib/universities are in our core? Then there is no cultural expansion to speak of.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

RBC15c – Russia
Jan,. 1805AD

First, notice we have cities on Cannons or Wealth under Mobilization – switch to real units.
Get 3 Slaves and 6gp from Netherlands for Naval Tactics.

Selling off Libraries and Universities? St. Petersburg and, less likely, Kiev could get another expansion and claim more land, Odessa is fighting against Chisinau’s culture. That leaves only Moscow, and IMHO it’s not worth it.

And I don’t like all that open cities, will station at least a Cossack everywhere.
IBT:
Spanish kill all but one defender of Posen
Lots of Guards finish.

Turn 1: Mar., 1805
Capture Posen without losses.
Denmark and Ottomans sign peace.

Turn 2: May, 1805
4 Civs know Medicine, buy it from the Ottomans for WM and 73gpt. Sell Medicine to France for Military Logistics, Gems, WM, 15gp and 25gpt.
Notice Sweden has no longer a MPP with the Ottomans.
Kill an insane amount of Fusiliers at Hannover, loose a Cossack, but finally kill the Knight that shows up last and capture it. Prussia down to Hamburg.
IBT:
Lots of WltKDs.

Turn 3: Jul., 1805
Reinforcing, healing, Barb whacking. Don’t haste to get Hamburg, since we’ll drop out of Mobilization then.
But it’s a good time to buy Artillery Tactics from Spain for 97gpt, since I can upgrade a stack of Cannons this turn. Do this for 210gp (we only have 7, we clearly need some more IMHO)
Sell Advanced Tactics to KoN for 55gp and 7gpt.

Turn 4: Sept., 1805
Grrr…cannot build a road to Sweden, Danish Muskets block the way. Position troops for final assault on Hamburg.
IBT:
British Lifeguard attacks 9/14 Cossack Army, and is barely defeated.

Turn 5: Nov., 1805
Capture Hamburg, and eliminate the Prussians.
Mobilization ends.

Sorry, I must hand off the game with a lot of units unmoved – their destination simply depends on the next player. And, most build orders are placeholders, depending on if you want to remobilize again; same for MM. That’s the problem with only 5 turns…

Options:
Open a small war against Sweden. I gathered some units in the North, and built some more ships. If you feel like that, move the Batteries and Cossacks to Talinn.

Attack that Lifeguard near Amsterdam. The British won’t talk. However, since we’ll enter the Dutch territory, this should mean war with Portugal (pointless), KoN (we’ll loose a 7gpt payment), and the Dutch – but IMHO we should be able to easily capture Amsterdam, so I would do that; better declare on the Dutch before, I don’t know exactly what it would mean to our rep otherwise. If you go that way, remobilize.

Otherwise, if you go for Austria first, by all means sign the Ottomans. We have some Guards already at Kiev, but we need Batteries.



The save

 

[Jabah]

Got it, should be able to play the 5t tonight.

Sweden looks interesting, only 4 cities for a good piece of land. Problem might be 'opening' another potentiel front line with England? (well, no England and Denmark are at war, so english landing in Norway to walk to sweden seems unlikely).

Jabah

 

[Jabah]

RBC15c


A few general comments:

To start with I want to enjoy 1 turn without mobilisation to rush lots of usefull improvements:
- courthouse in the south
- granary in Prussia
- market/cath/coll womewhere else.

Then I don't really like Cossacks doing MP in our backyards. Need to change that, especially if I can find a few cities where Jeager are much faster to build than Guard.

Want to have all th espanish cavalry away, since they are at peace with everyone, I buy an MA against England for fur+4gpt. Now they will deal with the English mainland and hopefully go after Gibraltar (then Netherland/Portugal...)

I want to strike Sweden, unfortunatly, we have almost no artillery around and they have infantry (def5). Move more artillery north, try to collected them with troop transport. Will need at least an army there. Probably around 2/3 turns.

Get an embargo with Austria against Britain.

IT
Someone is attacking Stokoholm
France destroys Netherlands
Naples, Portugal vs Spain

Stettin, Hamburg, Hanover -> granary
Dantzig -> Temple
Smolensk, Kharkov -> Colosseum
Sevastopol, Odessa, Kriyvyy, Dnepropetrosk, Stararya Russa, Pskov -> Courthouse
Bryansk -> Marketplace
Kiev -> Jeager

Turn 1 - Jan. 1806
First Mobilise (against Britain)

IT

Konigberg, Riga ->Harbor
StPeter ->Guard
Minsk, Yaroslav ->Jeager
Potosk, Novgorod ->Cossack
Helsinki, Talinn ->Frigate

Turn 2 - Mar. 1806
Declare war to Sweden
Sweden is at war with France+Denmark
Declare to Sweden

IT
Gloops, despite our Embargo, Britain turn Ottomans against us.
Lost Dyes, Wines (but had a new one) ...
No troops coming anyway

Novgorod revolt

Swedish boats coming

Turn 3 - May. 1806
** Assault on Leipzig
Cossack army kills 2 Janissary (5/5) going to 2hp
Elite cossack : 2wins/1def
Vet Cossack : 3win (1promotion)
8defensifs units but Leipzig fells (4 conscript were drafted, Leipzig is not happy)

** Assault on STOCKHOLM (edited)
Cossack army kills 1 Infantry but is 5hp so back to barracks

IT
Ottomans get Austria against us (wanted to get Austria first but they wanted very huge gpt for that)
Nothing of note anyway

Turn 4 - Jun. 1806
Buy MA against Austria+Ottoman with France for 14gpt

Turn 5 - Sep. 1806
Kill some Swedish, austrian & ottoman units.
Gather an stack next to Stockholm.


Point to keep in mind

- We need to clear the sweden to get our nothern unit back soon.
- We need more artillery down the Ottoman border (I rushed a few for next turn).
- I start gathering another stack in Posen to go after Warsaw.
- As long as France is against Austria (and that was for quite a long time) Austria should not be able to assemble a decisive army against us.
- I did not trigger any British allies against us, in fact I never saw a british unit. Since we have a MA with Spain, keep it that way
- Our offensive units really are not that great against 5def infantry in cities...
- GA should finish soon (next turn)

Jabah


build order were according to this pattern (more or less) :
55+ : Guard
50-54 : Cossack
40-49 : Jaeger
37-39 : Guard
34-36 : Cossack
28-33 : Guard
27 : Jaeger
25-26 : Cossack
22-24 : Guard

 

[grahamiam]

i see it but i can't get to it tonight and i'm up in another tomorrow night. i will try to fit it in then.

meanwhile, some visuals...

Sweden


Germany


Ottomans

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

** Assault on Copenhagen

grahamiam, by all means pillage that Swedish Saltpeter near Norsundet, it's their only source. And since they are isolated, we'll at least face no drafted MuI.

Don't move too many Cossacks from our back, I preferd them as MP, since they can kill those annoying Barbs. And, unlike Jaegers, they can move elsewhere in case of an emergency.

I was afraid of Britain buying the Ottomans/ Austrians all the time; the big is:
Why are we at war with Britain?

 

[Jabah]

"Assault on Copenhage" --> on Stockholm I somehow didn't pay attention we writting



Regarding the barbs, we have a few units stationning and clearing the fog (north doesn't need it AFAIR, west is a cossack on a hill) so it is unlikely (even if military says there was an uprising next to Yaroslav - can't see it).
We have some barb (uprising) in Crimee (next to sevastopol) to make our cossak elite.

The landing on Sweden was next to Stokholm due to our 3move transport. Sweden had several frigate at that time (still has but inside) and I did'nt want to risk an army in transport (we had 1 frigate at the landing time to cover only). Anyway we were mainly killing troops going in and out of the city until now (there was only 1 artillery before last turn).

BTW we are at war with England because Prussia manage to get them into it. They didn't want to talk at the beginning of my turn and since Spain was at peace with everyone and moving too many cavalries around, I deciced that have them fighting each other should be a good idea.

I also forget, we can (should?) buy spain against Austria and Ottoman for around 25gpt.

Jabah

 

[grahamiam]

Preflight check: we are at 22/25, almost 50%. VP for France = 11910, needs 60000.

IBT: we lose a Cossack to a Swedish musket. We lose a J to an Austrian cav. 9 Ottoman Sipahi show up SW of Odessa
Spain destroys the Portuguese, Ottomans declare on Spain and Danes.

Konigsburg barracks ->guard; Kiev Jaeger -> Jaeger; Odessa GB -> GB; Kriy GB -> GB; Dnep GB-GB; Kharkov guard -> guard; Polatsk Guard -> Guard; Helsinki jaeger-> jaeger; Talin jaeger-> jaeger

Bede considers us to be “Great”

T1: Nov 1806AD GB’s go 3 for 3 @ Stockholm but our Cossacks get beat-up pretty bad, including the Army (1/13). Evacuate Army to Talinn for healing and unload 2 Jaegers to help the guards.
Kill 2 Sapahi and retreat 1 near Odessa.

IBT: Guard on hill kills another Sapahi and retreats one but then gets killed by the third. Sweden declares on Spain.
Spain and France MA vs Austria

T2: Jan 1807AD Capture Warsaw; GB cuts off Stockholm from the salt in the north. Rush a bunch of units.

IBT: KoN and Austria sign TE against us. Spain wants an MPP and RoP and would give us GE and Sanitation and 392gp but I pass for now as I am not sure how many wars that will get us in.

Britain want peace + worker but I tell him to take a hike.

GA ends. Catch spain trying to plant a spy.

T3: Mar 1807AD Kill 6 Sipahi around Odessa, army returns for Stockholm

IBT: Sweden lands 2 MI’s and a cav next to Danzig. Ottomans move a large number of troops to Odessa

T4: May 1807AD Kill the Swedish landing force.

GB’s go ¾ near Odessa, use a guard to kill a Janissary, then use 1 vet Cossack to kill 3 Sapahi’s (1/5), getting an MGL. Form an army and load 3 vet Guards into it. Use the Guard army to kill 2 more Sapahi’s, promoting 1 unit inside (13/16).
Move units up to take Lvov next turn.
Drop off more Cossacks for Stockholm.

IBT: Sweden drop off more troops to die(2 MI’s and 2 cav); get General Staff School message.

IBT: Ottomans want to talk but I send them away.

T5: July 1807AD GB’s near Stockholm and Danzig let me down again, going 2 for 6 total
I feel like I’m beating my head against the wall @ Stockholm: Army kills vet MI (4/13); Cossack redlines MI but dies, promoting it; Cossack kills 4/5 MI (1/4) and now we’re down to conscripts ; vet Cossack dies flawlessly vs 2/2 MI, promoting it; Cossack redlines but dies to 3/3 MI, promoting it to 2/4; Cossack kills conscript (3/4); Cossack redlines but dies to conscript, promoting it; elite Cossack kills conscript flawlessly; elite Cossack blitzes 2/3 MI and kills it flawlessly; vet Cossack kills 2/4 MI flawlessly; vet Cossack blitzes 2/4 MI and wins/promotes (2/5); elite Cossack with 2 wins this turn kills 2/4 MI and we take the town + 1g + cannon

BG’s go 2/2 @ Lvov; Army kills a Grenzer; Army kills a Hussar (5/13); vet Cossack kills ¾ Grenzer; elite Cossack kills 2/4 Grenzer; Elite Cossack kills ¼ Hussar and we take the city + 2 workers.

Near Danzig: Cossack kills Swedish MI (3/4); elite Cossack kills another (3/5); blitz the vet Cossack and it kills a Swedish cav flawlessly and promotes (4/5); use him again and he’s redlined but wins.

Outside Leipzig: elite Cossack dies to 2/4 Hussar; vet Cossack kills it off.

Near Odessa: 1 elite Cossack kills 2 Sapahi, is redlined on the second, but produces another MGL. I’ll let the next player decide what he wants to do with him. It take pretty much everything else we have @ Odessa to take out 5 Janissary’s and 1 more Sapahi. GB’s only went ¼, forcing the Guard army to have to take down 2 5hp Jan’s (6/16).

I have a guard going for the Austrian salt. Should get there next turn.
There are 2 guards on a troop transport near Stockholm.
There's a large number of barbs E of Odessa, not that we can do anything about them right now with all those Ottoman troops in our face.

We are up to 18105 VP’s and 24/28.
Good luck.

 

[grahamiam]

something to note from last nights turns...

i registered a little under 6200 vp's during those 5 turns, probably mostly due to the Ottoman's pouring Sapahi's and Janissary's over the SE border. This is a fast pace since, at this rate, it will only require about 34 more turns to trip a VP victory. Ottoman's are willing to talk about peace but we will break MA's. I'm not sure we really care at this point about our rep as there are only 2 tech's left but it will effect our ability to get someone to attack France later if we need help.

edit: out of town till Sunday night

 

[microbe]

preturn: I sell Code Civil to Naples for WM+3gpt+28g.

Lots of Ottoman units around Odessa. 13 units can attack next turn, mostly attack 5. We have only 2 healthy guards in it with a bunch of injured cossacks.

I rush General Staff School in Kriyvyy. Although it's much cheaper than Military Acadamy, it's more useful.

IBT: Ottomans units LEAVE Odessa. Only one pillaging there and no attack!

We do lose a cossack to a hussar somewhere else. Lots of barb horses enter our territory.

(1)Sep, 1807AD:

We lost two cossacks to a hussar!

IBT The hussar dies to our cossack. We lose a guard. Barb horses pillage two tiles.

(2)Nov, 1807AD:

Cossack army and 2 cossacks kill 3 defenders and we capture Tarnopol.

@Stockholm:
Elite cossack kills 2hp musketman and we get a leader:



It forms another cossack army.

cossack kills another 1hp musket infantry.

2 armies kill 4 musket infantry.

@Odessa:
Elite cossack kills 1hp Sekhan and we get another leader.



I then rush Military Acadamy in Kriyvyy.

IBT We lose 3 jaegers, 1 cossack and 1 grand battery, and retreats several hussars.

(3)Jan, 1808AD:

Cossack kills 4 hussars and capture back the grand battery.
Kill sipahi.

Army kills 4 defenders and we capture Huskvarna, drops to 2hp.
Guard army and 4 cossacks kill 5 Janissary without loss, and we take Chisinau.

IBT some ottoman attack. We lose one guard but wins a few. We caught British attempt of stealing plans.

(4)Mar, 1808AD:

Movement.

IBT Ottomans attack Chisinau which has our guard army. 5 units die.

(5)May, 1808AD:

Kill 4 Grenzer and we capture Prague.
Kill 3 musket infantry and 2 musketmen and we capture Kristianstad.
Army kills 2 musket infantry in the last Sweden city and decide to heal this turn.
Kill 2 units in our territory.

We have 28% land and 31% pop. Our VP is 25550. With this speed we can get domination within 15 turns.

I have a question. VP is calculated if you fortify on the spot. So if we do not fortify the unit (wake up/press space), do we avoid VP?

There are a lot of Ottomans around Chisinau, but we should be OK with the guard army.

I didn't do a very good job in avoid killing units initially but I did pay attention in the last couple of turns.

I didn't do any trading as we don't need more techs. But if you want you can MA with someone against Sweden after we are ready to kill it, so we can get gpt back as soon as we kill it.

We are ready to take Cracow next turn.

I suggest make peace with Britian when MA with Spain expires (no other MA right?), as we'll not fight it and their boats are really annoying. We should then declare on Denmark. We have boats in Talinn.

Warning: do not load the 4th unit into armies at Sweden otherwise you wouldn't be able to transport them back.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Nice job in getting the leaders.

Some comments:
- We do could need General Education (additional Temple) and Sanitation (Hospitals, BMed), but it's not a must have
- Don't overestimate our progress, we only gained 10% land so far, and we need 12%.
- Denmark is out for now, they are in a locked alliance with France...
- Will try to get peace with Britain.
- VPs count, whether fortified or not. The most important way to avoid them is getting city size down (VPs from conquest= 100*city size), and win before the AI has Hospitals.

Got it.