RK14 - Artist's Block

[Lansky]

We don't have any theaters up at all. I had to choose between theaters and barracks essentially and went with barracks for the +2 happy and experience.

Overall our infrastructure is lacking outside of universities. We either have to war asap with what we have or we could also delay any wars until after we completely redo our production and put down a bunch of workshops now that we have techs to support it (would need to bulb/tech chem). *shrug*

 

[Glare Seethe]

Nah, let's just draft the crap out of our cities. I think I can get some more theatres up before Rifling/Nationalism is in anyway, we could use them to help with draft unhappiness too.

 

[Lansky]

Sounds good. We'll want to use the culture slider to get a few more conscripts anyway as most cities will only have enough excess happiness for 1-2 drafts.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Very short round.

IT, 970AD:

Slider to 100%, RP in 8 turns. Micro some tiles/specialists and change builds in most cities to theatres.

980AD:

2-pop whip a whole bunch of theatres.

990AD:

Resume work on longbowmen. Last theatre will be in London once Oxford's done.

1000AD:

Not much.

1010AD:

Pericles completes the AP but I vote for Gilga.

1020AD:

Not much.

1030AD:

Not much.

1040AD:

Oxford's done. Decent boost to research.

1050AD:

RP is in. Cathy and Kublai can research both Lib and Econ. I'll finish Lib first then try to race to the GM building wealth/research in cities and running some scientists where possible.

1060AD:

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Economics in 6 turns at 90% research losing -47gpt.

1070AD:

Kublai completes Angkor Wat and both Pericles and Sury suddenly have ~500 gold to trade. I give Pericles Paper for it, which means I can take our cities off wealth and back onto longbowmen redcoats.

1080AD:

Not much.

1090AD:

Cathy beats us to the GM. Oh well. We can trade for Nationalism with a bunch of people (Pericles seems like a good candidate for the trade), and I'm thinking Chemistry next:

Globe Theatre maybe in York? It has enough production to slow-build the first part before we whip it in (can also borrow production from London), and enough food to support drafting. The workboat in London is for the whales. I stupidly lost our scouting workboat to a barb galley.

 

[White Dragon]

Since we lost the race to Econ, shouldn't we whip Stock Exchanges in most of our cities to maximize our gold output for upgrades?

Edit: Is this mine or is it Meats?

 

[Glare Seethe]

I think it's yours, and that's a good idea about stock exchanges.

 

[Lansky]

When are we flipping the switch and starting to draft? Stacking drafts + whips is not generally a good idea. I'd say just upgrade what we can and use conquest gold to fuel more upgrades, but that is only if we start war prep in the next... well when we trade for Nationalism.

 

[Glare Seethe]

I think we can give Banking and Lib to Pericles for Nationalism (likely not just one of the two, but I haven't checked) then draft as much as we can taking the unhappiness into account. I don't know how much whip anger there still is in our cities as after the theatres I'm pretty sure I didn't whip anything else. How many redcoats do we want before declaring? I would say at least 20 but would feel much more comfortable with 25-30. Thing is, it will take us a while to get to Sury's best cities so capitulation is not likely to come quick even if we raze all of his worthless tundra/hub cities. I think this war will take a while, although not dragging siege along will help, I guess - though not with the number of casualties.

And of course there is still Meatbuster's galley/redcoat combo idea. Does Sury have any good coastal targets? London can build galleys (don't think we want to draft there anyway), we could probably take a few cities that way while the main army goes through the hub. Or vice versa? Amphibious landing with a smaller force razing his junk tundra cities?

edit: everyone okay with York as GT city then?

 

[Meatbuster]

Screw the galleys. I underestimated land travel. Enemies are closer than I thought.

However, we can build one galley and stuff it with redcoats just for flavor.

 

[Lansky]

At this point I'd still keep any city that is coastal. As for the number of units I generally just move out when it *feels right*. Yeah I know it is a very good and hard fast determination of when to declare.

I expect that casualties will be lower than if we waited for siege. By the time we whip it in and draft an army Sury will have rifling. Fortified rifles will still kill a cannon or two a city which is roughly what I'd expect to lose in redcoats 0-3 per city. Hatty would not, but she's a soft target right now anyway. Actually if we had been smarter a couple spies and focused espionage would have been awesome. WHOOPS!

 

[White Dragon]

Right now we can't support much drafting. After Econ, I plan on making a rather large shift into the following civics: Nationhood, Theocracy & Free Market. Going to start on Globe in York just because we need it. Also planning on bulbing Chemistry for some workshop powered production for a few cities to slow build Redcoats. Kinda late for a PPP since I plan on playing shortly.

Edit:

I probably screwed the pooch on this one but here are my 15 turns. Please comment heavily.

Turn 255
Fired about 10+ specialists we had in cities other than London. Swapped mines to York from London then hired another scientists there.

Turn 256
Whipped a Redcoat in York with Overflow to Globe. As I write this I now remember what I was supposed to do. Instead of super heaving whipping and keeping the unit there for HR, is sent them to the front and only did "normal" whipping.

Turn 257
Workers laying down roads, workshops, & some cottages.

Turn 258
Economics completed. Queued Chemistry. Made the following trade and swapped civics.

Turn 259 Z

Turn 260
Whipped our first 3 redcoats. Slider to 0%

Turn 261
Peri wants RP and gold for Astro. Nope. Whip overflow from redcoats to stock exchanges then draft 3 more rifles from those same cities, which were already dealing with stacked unhappiness but now it is much worse.

Turn 262
Gilga demands GP. I say no. Upgrade some LB's and CB's. Costs about 290 each and we are only producing 146 @ 100%. Whip another redcoat in york with overflow to GT.

Turn 263-265
I realize that I am not the best person to be playing these turns since I know we want to go to war soon and I feel I am just not whipping/drafting enough, but I don't want to use any culture until we are out of troops to upgrade. Instead, building some infra here and there because of large unhealthiness. Also notice we have no harbors or custom houses, which seems like a must have since our entire economy is based on our 5 trade routes per city. But what is a guy to do? Whip infrastructure for the rest of the game or get with waring?

Turn 266
Received a GS from London. We now have 2 asleep on the piggies. Made these two trades.

Turn 267
Whip another Redcoat in York for overflow to GT.

Turn 268 Z

Turn 269
Get various offers for Rifling or PP, all of which are declined.

Turn 270
Some end of set looking around trying to think how bad I screwed the pooch and what I could have done different/better. We have 19 Rifles at the front line. Don't know if that is enough, but that is for Meat to decide.

Edit 2 Why would we raze any city that is coastal? With 5 trade routes wouldn't they be instantly beneficial to our empire? Also, I say we keep Surry's one city in the hub because if we don't, Hatty or KK will most likely build a city there and cut us off from our two areas, that is unless we follow with one of our own.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Looks fine to me, it's nothing the culture slider can't fix. If we bulb Chemistry with one GS now we can finish it the next turn. Only thing I'm slightly worried about is Kublai's stack in his city north of Marble, as we are out of Bureaucracy and he's dropped to Pleased. We should keep an eye on that.

 

[Meatbuster]

I have an itchy trigger finger.
I'll go play this one after Paladins.

Plans:
1. Make sure 19 redcoats are enough.
2. Defend our coast from any possible attack.
3. Watch for Sury's landing party, if any.
4. Attack by land, taking the city in the middle.
5. Build harbors and customs houses to improve our awesome trade routes.
6. Avoid researching Corporation.
7. Most importantly, avoid researching Corporation.
8. Tech to Chemistry with Scientist #1.
9. Figure out what to do with Scientist #2.

 

[Meatbuster]

Crap. Too sleepy to go on... will play later after 8-10 hours of rest.

Perhaps y'all can comment on my plans so I'll read them when I wakey wakey.

 

[Glare Seethe]

I only want to add a number 10:

10. Finish Globe Theatre in York ASAP and draft that city mercilessly.

 

[White Dragon]

 

[Meatbuster]

All right, since I'm in a hurry I'll make the summary quick and dump all the screenies.

First up, I traded Gems to Kublai for his Silver.
Cathy demanded Rifling which was met by a swift NO.
As agreed, one of the scientists bulbed part of Chemistry. We finish it and head for steel. I'm still amassing money so not much research in Steel. We can go 100% research anytime soon.
Declare war on the Khmer, they send us a stack of Cuirassers, which promptly get dispatched by our SoD.
Lose 1 Redcoat taking Pre Rup (killing 5 units).
Lose 2 Redcoats razing Jayendranagari (killing 6 units).
Lose 0 Redcoats at the battle of Banteay Kdei (killing 6 units as well as an "exploratory" stack of Cuirassers and Crossbows which suicided into a mini stack of 3 redcoats on a hill).
Whip Redcoat at York and decide not to do anymore whipping to regrow and work the production tiles.
Start Heroic Epic (only 8 turns at start!) on Nottingham and send our first Great General to it to settle. Don't really see the need for Super Medic at this stage. We already have a Medic 2 Redcoat.
Globe finishes in 17 turns.

Spoiler for pics :

 

[White Dragon]

Nice turns Meat.

Only 2 turns until we can 6 pop whip the Globe in York if anyone is interested. Hello relentless drafting!!!

KK is in WHEOOHRN mode. Should we be worried?

 

[Meatbuster]

We still have standby troops stationed at Pre Rup (actually, those that are healing after attacking the city we razed). We have the money to upgrade them in case of any eventuality. We will only lose Marbletown probably.

KK's likely target is Hatty at Cautious/+2. Pericles is +5. We and Sury are at +7 with KK.
Currently, KK Man has rifles and has a small force of medieval units stationed at his ice city.

We should probably be more worried about Sury's Galleon which might go and pillage all our seafood.

 

[Meatbuster]

Is Lansky still around?
How about Glare, can you pick this up?