RK14 - Artist's Block

[Glare Seethe]

For the record I never play only 10 turns, even in the late game it's always at least 15 or so. So 12 is really fine.

Good set! Airships are cool, I only recently discovered their usefulness myself. Plan is to keep taking Egyptian cities, obviously. I don't know if we want to take Hatty as a vassal since everyone hates her (or is Cautious to her). She does have two island cities so if the plan's to wipe her out we'll need some galleons. But that's for Meatbuster's set anyway, I won't get that far.

Anyway will play in a few hours.

 

[Glare Seethe]

IT, 1445AD:

I decide to revolt back to Bureaucracy. It looks like we have enough troops to take on Hatty and Kublai's scary. Debated whether to revolt to any other civics. But we need HR to keep Gilga at Pleased and Emancipation unhappiness is not that bad that we need to leave Slavery yet. Maybe this was a mistake, I'm not sure. But Slavery is just so useful. So, so useful.

So anarchy for two turns now. I give Sury fish for his wine and Cathy rice for 5gpt. Also give Willem a source of rice for 8gpt. Cancel sugar/8gpt deal with Gilga and give him sheep instead, for 13gpt. Re-negotiate corn/8gpt deal with Pericles to get 12gpt instead.

Perk of being anarchy is that I don't have to check any cities.

1450AD:

Gilga offers Military Tradition and 160g for Democracy. Takes me so long to decide that I actually hear the end of the Sumerian music. Multiple times. Umm. I don't really know what to do here. Everyone basically has Democracy already, but MT is not very important, we don't even have stone for West Point. And if I give it to him he'll no doubt switch to Emancipation causing us further unhappiness. So no.

Pericles completes Versailles. Lots of workers to give orders to, at this point I'm not sure what. I think Railroad would be a good tech next to connect our peninsula with the hub and also nobody has it yet. We could trade it to Cathy for Electricity maybe. Plus it'll give our workers something to do and it's on the way to Flight.

We have some workers around Hariharalaya but again, I'm not keen on changing any of these improvements. I guess I can lay down some watermills in place of cottages to add some hammers and maybe make it a production city? Normally since it's destined to be a Wall Street city I wouldn't think about this but we might actually finish this game without ever getting Corporation, so why not.

1455AD:

We take Giza with no losses:

Comes with a settled Great Priest. I also kill some of her troops outside Byblos / Avaris.

Now that we're out of anarchy it's easier to see what improvements each city needs if any, so I'm going to go over them first before ordering the workers around. Let's see... yeah, no clue. Honestly everything looks fine to me, but I'm terrible with calculating food/hammers and stuff like that, plus I don't know if we're planning on going State Property later (and leave the free trade route from Free Market? Probably not). So instead of changing improvements I'm going to deploy the workers in a way that facilitates railroad construction once the tech is in - meaning I'm just going to put them on mines.

1460AD:

Our troops are on the move. Airships do some damage. Not much else happening. I've been whipping some harbors/custom houses.

1465AD:

Hatty escapes defeat at Akhetaten since her knight manages to kill one of our injured redcoats, leaving us with no other troops to finish the job. Next turn. We get a Great General who's sent to Nottingham. Kind of wish we had Military Science, actually, for the Military Academy. would be nice since Nottingham actually doesn't even have that many hammers, at least not enough for what's supposed to be our primary military city. We could put Moai Statues here, though, since we never settled that city at the eastern tip of our peninsula. Maybe once we take Elephantine (which is sitting on top of stone) we can start it here. No one has MS yet so I can't trade for it unfortunately. So for now I'll just settle him, we'll almost certainly get another one during the Egypt war.

1470AD:

We take Akhetaten:

Sury completes the Statue of Liberty, Cathy's working on wonders since she refuses to trade Electricity now.

1475AD:

Not much.

1480AD:

Start the attack on Sakae.

1485AD:

Sack Sakae:

Assault Asyut:

Hatty's willing to capitulate at this point, as well as convert to Judaism as part of the deal. Actually, Kublai and Gilga both like her. Pericles is indifferent and Cathy's only upset that Hatty's Confucianist.

Just noticed Kublai has some infantry already and more disturbingly he has switched to Free Religion, dropping him to Pleased with us, which is dangerous. There are also some defensive pacts going around:

1490AD:

Pericles adopts Free Religion as well. Troops are healing for one turn cause a lot of them are down to 2-3 strength.

1495AD:

We get a Great Scientist and I sleep him on Pig Hill. Look at Sury's Great Artist, though:

No doubt going to bomb Avaris.

1500AD:

Not much.

1505AD:

Pre Rup goes into revolt due to Sury's culture bomb. Railroad next turn.

1510AD:

Railroad's in and I save game. No one else has it yet. Pericles has a giant pile of gold which I wouldn't mind having. Picked Combustion as placeholder since it leads us to Flight. Workers can start railroading, I feel kind of lame that they spent almost the entire set sleeping, but whatever. Diplo situation is complicated due to Free Religion / Defensive Pacts and we need to figure out our next move.

 

[Meatbuster]

Sounds peachy. I would want some questions answered before my turn:
1. Do we want to sign any defensive pact, or would we rather press the attack on someone (else?) while everyone is teching some stuff post-scimeth when they should be backtracking and getting infantry to improve their army?
2. Hatty: capitulate or destroy?
3. Trades: what do we give out? What do we keep and what do we get? I wonder what we can give to Peri for his cash (can look at save later, I'm at school)

 

[Lansky]

Will take a better look when I get home but some thoughts for now:

1. Can we bribe these people back into Theocracy and therefore Judaism? This is worth setting the slider to 0% for a LONG time in order to make happen. Having KK at friendly is really important.

2. Cathy taking the Mass Media beeline wonders is annoying, but not that bad. I would have really liked to get the bonus resources to trade around/combat emancipation (slavery is amazing here too bad we lost The Kremlin) and Cristo Redentor is amazing for diplo pushes. If we manage to get CR the game is 100% won. Enough civic swaps and gold will win this easily. I'd prefer to have Cathy vote for us and not against us in a UN vote with Pericles building it, but oh well if that can't happen.

3. If we can get Hatty pleased+ with the other AI's then I can see the use in vassalizing her. I would prefer the rest of her cities (she has a shrine right somewhere right?), but the quicker the war is over the sooner we are safe. Vassals won't screw with a diplo vote actually, but I am worried about KK as they do screw with war check diplomacy. From the sounds of it KK is indeed scary. This would also allow us to get some defensive pacts of our own going, which should protect us for the remainder of the game.

4. We should keep pushing Flight/Radio. Bombers will destroy this map. Perhaps as you said Glare detour towards flight for now and hope we can trade for electricity.

I'll take a look at the save when I get off work, but the main thing is CAN WE BRIBE PEOPLE BACK INTO GOOD CIVICS?!!?!

 

[Lansky]

To answer you directly Meath I'd say:

1. IF we can bribe people back into civics that make them love us I would just sign defensive pacts. If we can control diplo in this manner then our need for further techs/land should be nonexistant.

2. Can't say without looking at the save. Both have merits based on diplo.

3. We just want to try and monopolize flight. I'd trade anything else if it helps our cause, especially giant piles of cash.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Yeah, I kept looking for the option to bribe them back to open up but it hasn't yet. They only revolted a few turns ago. Hopefully in the next couple of turns. If we can do that and force Hatty into Judaism I think we'll be okay capitulating her - she still has a lot of cities (nine, two of which are on islands) and we've only conquered her isthmus, haven't even started on the actual peninsula. Her shrine is pretty far away too. It'll take a while if we aim to wipe her out completely.

Actually let me just check the save for a sec... we can bribe Gilga into Theo/Judaism again for 680g and force Hatty into Judaism as well. She is already in HR (Cathy/Gilga) and Bureau (Kublai) so it is only a matter of time before they get to Pleased/Friendly with her through civics and religion bonuses. Of course they might all just switch back in a few turns.

Cathy building the UN would kind of suck, yeah... didn't think about that, might have been better to beeline Mass Media ourselves rather than take the detour to Railroad/Flight. Especially now with the defensive pacts warring on anyone has become complicated.

We haven't maxed out the fair and forthright bonus with anyone yet, so that's another +1-3 with everyone, but Cathy will still get the votes from Kublai and Gilga.

Also, Meatbuster, most of our workers are sleeping and I didn't wake them up before saving so be sure to do that.

edit: We can break up Cathy and Kublai's pact by having Kublai declare on Pericles (for Railroad). So they lose a little diplo but we lose some with Pericles at the same time.

 

[Lansky]

If we don't want to fight any more wars (could be rough given the world scene) the back up would be emancipation cottages to space. It's a bit late to turn on the research switch but a quick stroll over to the internet would solve that.

A ton will depend on who we can bribe to do what and then who runs against us in the UN. I bet we can still beat Cathy in a vote. Will just take some work without CR.

 

[Meatbuster]

All right, I'm home but I'm too sleepy to play now. I'll see what I can do in 20-24 hours.

 

[Lansky]

Okay a few nit picks after looking at the save.

1. Custom Houses suck. The 100% commerce is misleading as that bonus is applied on top of the bonuses for the harbor, capital connection, peace, foreign, intercontinental, and so on. They are the last thing to build and even then building gold could be better.

2. Some cities have not been managed and are working poor tiles and/or specs.

3. BWUAHAHAHAHAHA

I'm a moron. All this compalining about Pericles not being able to build the UN and he has already won us the game. He has spread Judaism to just about every city on the map other than Willem who has one lonely Jewish city. We may have vetoed a back door AP win, but who wants to walk in the front door with me?!!

- Tech biology (GS will bulb it) and use the governor to focus on food/growth.
- Gift Railroad to whoever we don't have +4 fair trade with.
- Take Phonecian, Heliopolis, Thebes, and Memphis from Hatty. Don't forget about the airships set to sleep atm. No one actually likes her due to her peace weight. Best person is only pleased (Gilga) and that won't cut it.
- I'd capitulate her after those anyway and sign a defensive pact with Cathy. DP on top of converting her to Judaism should suffice diplomatic relations.
- Probably need to revolt to emancipation to cure some unhappiness.
- Garrison military in cities that are likely to revolt.
- Bribe whoever we can back to Judaism, but it doesn't really matter. After fair trade they should be friendly anyway. Only need +8 (after hidden modifiers ) for a diplo win vote, but friendly will stop dows .
- Tell Sury to tech something other than Bio so he doesn't trade it around.
- Build over workshops/towns/whatever with farms to increase population growth.
- HIT ENTER UNTIL WE WIN!

It will take a while because we have to be elected and then wait the delay for the first chance to vote, but this really can't go wrong. Game over man. Game over.



If this idea is vetoed I am not 100% sure on how to win as Cathy has the best shot at the UN and has a ton of population. We'd likely have to keep warring or go to space.

 

[White Dragon]

I am up for whatever our fearless leader decides, or is this a democracy? Even then, I suppose we need a majority so you 3 work it out and I will go with the masses.

 

[Lansky]

Actually culture would in fact be faster than space if we wanted a peaceful non diplomatic ending. We control just about every religion (or maybe every religion) in the game. Would need to swap to OR/US to get the infrastructure up in a few cities, but it would be over relatively quickly.

Of course this is even more boring and tedious than diplo as it only entails building a ton of temples to open up 3 cathedrals of each type.


Basically I think we are set up well for any of the peaceful victory conditions and war is possible though it would be much more annoying and the only reason I can see to do it is out of masochism. Not to say that such a reason is not a valid one I have never employed.

 

[White Dragon]

I would like to see us finish this the quicker the better.

On a side but related note, I have been playing SP games using this map script using the GLH trade route economy and really enjoy it so thanks for showing me that little tidbit. Have been playing as WvO though so when I get Dikes I can actually have some type of "normal" production. Also have been constructing Collosus so each water tile has been 2 1 and 4. Super duper amounts of gold during a golden age.

 

[Glare Seethe]

1. Custom Houses suck. The 100% commerce is misleading as that bonus is applied on top of the bonuses for the harbor, capital connection, peace, foreign, intercontinental, and so on. They are the last thing to build and even then building gold could be better.

Just want to make sure I understand this - you mean the 100% bonus is applied to the base trade route profit, i.e. before it's modified by any other bonuses, and therefore it doesn't multiply the +6-7 that you might see in the city screen, but rather the +1-2?

2. Some cities have not been managed and are working poor tiles and/or specs.

I didn't touch anything this turn so it could be that they have just grown. If they haven't just grown then my bad.

As for AP, I have to say I also don't really mind. I can understand if you guys just want to finish it off. But do we have enough time to win AP before the UN is built? Cathy'll probably get there pretty soon.

 

[Meatbuster]

UN is even better as we have boatloads of population plus vassals.
And AP won't be obsoleted until the AP owner gets Mass Media.
Time to play, so cross your fingers. I will win by any means possible.

If diplomacy (back or front door) doesn't work, I guess the only recourse is to return to nationalism and resume drafting. That, or rushbuy infantry, bombers and tanks to kingdom come.

 

[Lansky]

Just want to make sure I understand this - you mean the 100% bonus is applied to the base trade route profit, i.e. before it's modified by any other bonuses, and therefore it doesn't multiply the +6-7 that you might see in the city screen, but rather the +1-2?

Correct - you get 1-2 in a best case scenario. I used to think they had to be awesome since doubling a 7 commerce trade route would be well awesome.

Sadly assume the base commerce for a trade route is 1 (common in smaller cities and also easy on the math). These are guessed values as I don't completely recall-
Base 1
+50% harbor
+100% peace
+100% foreign
+150% capital connection
After modifiers 5
with a custom house 6

At this point for the large hammer investment obviously a library, or just about any other multiplier/growth building would be better and maybe even gold to bump up the slider. Custom houses just cost too many hammers for what they are.



AP:
Actually UN would be worse as we can't assure Pericles would build that. In order to win Diplo we need to run against Willem or Percicles or conquer more people. Right now with the AP Cathy will vote for us once we out grow our cities to take the lead - she actually has a higher population atm. Pericles has spread Judaism to 90% or so of the world so it closely mirrors a UN vote actually. Only Willem is left without much of a say and he's useless in this game anyway! I say tech Biology as we actually do have a bit of population catch up to play due to the heavy whipping/drafting we have done.

 

[Meatbuster]

Pre-turnset:
Set Sury's research to Military Science.
Railroad up our empire.
Bulb part of Bio and switch research to it.

Up to turn 325:
Take Elephantine with no losses.

Turn 326:
Buddhist Shrine revolts. Need more troops there.
Biology is in. Slot in Combustion again at 0% science.

Take Pheonecian at the loss of 1 Redocat.

Turn 329:
Take Heliopolis with no losses.

Turn 330:
Buddhist shrine comes out of revolt. Move warriors there. Whip other city to reduce unhappiness.

Vote comes up, unfortunately it's not for AP resident:

Turn 331:
REFUSE DEMAND OF BIOLOGY. TO CATHERINE. No dice.

This drops us to pleased. And you know Cathy, she DoWs after a refused demand usually. Fortunately it doesn't happen this turnset.
Catherine doesn't win Religious Victory.

Turn 333:
Battle of well-defended Thebes takes out 3 of our Redcoats but the inevitable happens:

Get a GG and settle in Nottingham.

Turn 337:
Take Memphis for 2 losses.

Turn 338:
Combustion is in.

We take a good city of Hatty's for capitulation, and immediately open borders and covert her to Judaism.

Tech situation:

Our new lands:

Other than the troops in Egypt we still have a small force stationed at Phoenician at the Dutch border.

Finally, sign def. pact with Cathy:

 

[Lansky]

Solid set. Can't see pics atm at work blah blah, but if we have the extra cash upgrading the warriors in the southern shrine would be worth it to prevent the revolts.

Edit - Holy crap I'm up again. I'll do my best to play tonight as otherwise I'll need a swap or hold until Monday.

 

[Meatbuster]

More info...
Sadly there are no wonders in Egypt. So what do we do now? Wait to win?
Hopefully Pericles will build the UN so we definitely win. Edit: BUT HE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE ELECTRICITY!!! CRAP!!! Edit2: At least AP won't be obsolete by Mass Media soon. Hopefully the vote for AP resident and victory comes before it gets obsolete.
And now our backup plan is to have a fleet of bombers to beat down on the AI starting with Will Orange. We're amassing money for Flight right now. Hopefully we can get Electricity and Radio somewhere down the line, otherwise we'll have to stick with the fighters. We can also tech artillery.
Oh, also I haven't started building wells on any oil we have.
Finally we need more workers to renovate Egypt.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Looks good. We can also tech through Mass Media ourselves and gift it to Pericles. Catherine is likely going down that path but theoretically she could also be teching Industrialism or Flight etc. at the moment. We can spend a few turns on espionage to get visibility into her research if we want.

Pericles is the only one not in a defensive pact at the moment so even war on Willem will be difficult.

We should also bribe Gilga/Kublai into Theocracy/Judaism.

 

[Lansky]

I'll play this afternoon for sure.

No need to be apprehensive or form back up plans - we just won the game with that last set. The AP is better for us than the UN given the current diplomatic status of the world. Only way we lose is if someone techs Radio and Mass Media and gifts it to Pericles in the next 40ish turns.