RR12 - A perfect spy

[Thrar]

If we can get a few more spies out, we could get started on Tlaxcala - it's fairly young and appears to get only 1 culture per turn from religion (I can't spot any buildings there).
I prefer to keep the artist for the middle/far east, anything that's not in reach of our core. We will have a hard time flipping those cities as they'll be mature when we get there, although fortunately those are not culture-monger civs.

About half our cities are still missing courthouses, I think we should get that fixed soon. Our empire is starting to become expensive, and more spy points never hurt of course.

We should spread more culture in Djenne than just to 50% to speed up flipping. As Rolo said I don't think we need to start spreading in Kumbi Saleh yet, better focus all spies on one city to get it quickly. It's more efficient to spread culture quickly via multiple missions in one city, otherwise the locally generated culture will diminish the value of the earlier spreads. And of course, one fully flipped city is better than two cities halfway. I'd send the spy from KS (just arrived) to Djenne and redirect the one currently on his way to KS.
To spread faster, we need more spies - spreading them out doesn't help and is in fact detrimental as Rolo pointed out. Although of course we can work on multiple cities if we have enough spies, 6-8 per city might be a reasonable number (at this distance to Aksum) I think.

Settling the silver is not a priority imo, it costs money and all our cities are 4 or more below the happy cap.

Tech-wise, I'm sure we can get Constitution at least.

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, sorry for haven't said anything on the game so far. Will play tonight

Spoiler explantion :

Well, in short words, yesterday the cops tried to tow my car from the front of my house claiming that it was abandoned .... when I use it everyday. Confronted with the fact that the car was obviously not abandoned, they tried to wave a non-existant regulament that forbids cars of being stopped in a public street for more than 48 h ( when the law states that a car can only be considered abandoned after a month of not being moved out of the place )...

Well, i managed to sort it out without harm to my side, but as you can imagine that spoiled completely my sunday

 

[nocho]

Cops work in Portugal? On Sundays??

Edit: btw, if you have a picture of your car, that could be explicative.

 

[r_rolo1]

It's a VW Golf from the 90's, nothing fancy. Quite good conditions for the mileage and definitely not a wreck ... in fact , not a spot of rust in it ( it was me that painted the car some years ago and I take care of the thing with pro products ( I have family in the auto business ) ).

In fact those smilies resume my expression when I seen the cops doing something on a sunday Well it was most likely what we call around here caça á multa

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, our set basically started with the AP build and correspondent vote:

Spoiler :

The red spy sign is the capture of our only lost spy in the set.

Some more turns of boriing builds and then the world goes up to flames even more than it was:

Spoiler :

In a unprecedented move in my civ IV experience, Lincoln dowed Monty ... and, in a more usual tone, Shaka dowed Darius.

Monty BTW is being beaten down by Mansa:

Spoiler :

That happened because Monty is sieging the malinese capital, most likely ( as you can see in the screen if you look with attention ). I entertained the idea of revolting Mali cap to give a hand to Monty ( it would help a lot in our hostile takeover of the region ), but Monty is a era behind Mansa and even with 0% defenses, things would not be easy.

Anyway, first spy action of the set:

Spoiler :

Sucessful, as the oncoming attack by the Zulu on the Persians:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

I maintained the spy actions in Kumbi Saleh. My objective was to flip the hill near Yeha to our side ( it did not happened yet, but it is 49% ours in the end of the set, so it will not take long ). I suggest to stop actions in there after this objective is achieved and focus on Djenne until it flips or atlest until we surrond it culturally.

BTW i was able to remove 500 g out of Wang pocket. Not sure why he had that money in there but it is better in our pocket than in his .

Spoiler :

3 things in the next pic:

Spoiler :

First we let lib in 1 turn to finish ... second, against the odds, we got another GA . Sugestions in what to do with him are most welcome. Third, we got failure cash out of A. wat.

On the last turn of the set, some more money out of a event:

Spoiler :

And monty stealing CoL from us:

Spoiler :

This would normally piss me, but in this variant i do prefer that the AI spends their EP ...

We also got a AP vote in this turn:

Spoiler :

I voted no, but we have very little power in the AP as it is. i expect to see this vote to pass, barring some defy.

The last spy actions of the set, both sucessful:

Spoiler :

Djenne now has a majority of Ethiopian culture.

And two pics for more intel, the tech trade screen and the culture overlay:

Spoiler :

We are 1 tile away of being able to spread culture in the Aztec, Malinese and Korean caps.

I'll discuss more in a spearate post below.

>>Save here<<​

 

[LKendter]

Looking for a roster

Can't download right now -
The file you are trying to access is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.

 

[r_rolo1]

Roster :

r_rolo1 -Just played
Thy_Spellcraft - UP
Brian Shanahan -somewhere out there
lymond - on deck
Thrar
LKendter
nocho

I'll upload the save again ... wierd.

P.S Try again now.

 

[LKendter]

This time I was able to download.

 

[LKendter]

I took a quick look. We are really doing nice for Luxuries. Many of our cities look like they can hit 20+ without to much effort.

With Matara being the AP religion city I would like to spread Christianity to an interior city so that we can get a biggest vote with the AP. I would hate to suffer AP nuisances.

MM nitpick - Can Hawulti swap to artist. I would rather get the culture out NOW.
Can we please get a token unit into Fasil. I hate empty cities...

I know I'm predictable, but I'd like to find a second city to build military.

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

OK, got it, and I'll try to play it this evening..

PPP:
Not that much to talk about.. I'll keep on spreading culture to Djenne and Kumbi and as Thrar suggested it could be a good idea to start on Tlaxcala as well. Techwise I'd finish natio but changing civics seems not that obvious 'cause free speech would be another good choice in this game.. But nonetheless I'm not sure what tech to get next.. PP could be a good choice and in case Wang finishes Edu we could take Const from Lib and go for Demo afterwards.. But I'm not conviced we could gat both, PP as well as Const, before Wang get to Lib. But taking this I'd rather finish lib right after natio to get the jails started..
Meanwhile spreading Christianity seems to be necessary as well to get some more votes!
The rest of the set seems building up infra and developing our land. Maybe some more military in our border citys and some more spies but that's all. What's about settling another city? I'd take the E spot from lymond's last dot map.
Concerning the two GA: I'd still keep at least one for a great work somewhere after resettling a raised city. For the second one it could be a propper idea to use him on a great work in Zeila to start spreading some culture to Seoul.

 

[Thrar]

Sounds like a plan. I don't think we need a bomb to reach Seoul. It's not important how much culture we can pump into it, just that our cultural influence reaches it to allow a flip. We can do that without a GA.
Sure, a GA can reduce the number of spies needed, but compared to what we'll be up for in the east, Seoul is still a relatively easy flip and I'd rather save the artists.

I still think it's a mistake to split our spies between two of MM's cities. I'd rather focus them all on Djenne to get it to flip quickly, then start sending them to KS.
The grassland cottage at Yeha should be replaced by a farm. There is an unused farm available, so Yeha can work that one instead of the cottage immediately. There's no point in cottages at Yeha, it's our NE city after all!

Agreed on getting Constitution with Lib. PP and Const might be too much to ask for before WK gets Edu, and getting those jails quickly will be useful anyway.

 

[nocho]

Also agree with libbing constitution, hadn't realized you also need PP for demo. And jails are a good improvement, obviously.

With lib, nat and constitution coming in at about the same time we should think of civics. Representation and Free Speech would make sense. Should we just build Taj asap somewhere for a mass-civic change? I'm unsure how far away we are from banking (haven't seen the save yet), but mercantilism would be nice too for free artists/spies/scientists everywhere, especially in combination with rep. Can't remember if we are in FR already (courtesy Shwedagon), if not we should change to that too, imo.

 

[r_rolo1]

Updated the report

LK, I agree with spreading the AP religion. I just wanted to have the monastery + temple AP hammers on before that. And the ungarrioned city ... I most likely fluked that , since I remember making a unit to send there

Thy, i never believed that we could get demo out of lib, so I'm ok with constitution Not sure if we want a new city now, atleast before merc. On the GAs, I'm open to sugestions, any sugestion

Thrar, I agree with focusing on one city at the time ... I already said why I made a exception this time in the report.

The cottage in Yeha ... IIRC the farm that is free is a plains one, so the cottage gives the same food than the farm and gives some more coins

Nocho: My idea was to make Taj while we tech Guilds->Banking and go atleast Rep/FS/Merc ( too bad we can't hire spies with caste ).

On a last note, where to build the FP? Not only because of the maintenance cut, but also of the culture and the spy GPP...

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

Ok finished my set.. Here's the short report:

IT:
Did some minor microas usual and I start on whiping some stuff: theatre in Adulis temple in Matara; Lib in hawulti;Lib in adwa

1170:
We lost the spy in Kumbi and the "Return city" resulution failed.
And I sold some "old" techs to fund some more deficit resurch:

Spoiler :

1180:
Islam founded by Mansa..
Whiped the mandir in Addis to start on the Taj the next turn..

1190:
Wang came for this demand:

Spoiler :

Hmm better not to take the additional diplo-hit with Mounty!
Natio comes in and on we go with the last turn of Lib..
So as already mentioneed I started on Taj in Addis 'cause that way I wouldn't be necessary to put that much spy action down there..

1200
Lib came in and as I suggested I took Const from it. And we went on with Guilds to get to banking as soon as possible (maybe we'll get the GM from Economics as well..)
Meanwhile I spread Christ to Qohaito and did some more culture spreading to Djenne. It's now 54 % ours!!

1220:
Demanding session:

Spoiler :

Not a single one accepted..
Guilds came in and on we go with Banking.

1230.
Spread some culture in Kumbi..

1250:
Banking came in and as this seems to be a good stopping point I did so!

Economics is just some place holder even though it would be worth it 'cause the GM would be something I really would like to get! But this desicion is up to the team!
Next player only should keep in mind to let Addis grow one more time and than switch to max hammers!

 

[LKendter]

Mansa capitol will be the most difficult of his cities to flip, and Djenne is a pretty good flip point. I agree to keep pushing culture there until it flips. We can see inside the city - it has the Christian shrine . It already makes $22 a turn. I want to keep this city.

Fasil Ghebbi is still empty with no garrison.

I can see my vision for Massawa was a lot different than ever body else. I wanted to whip with major overflow in Moai. We still haven't even started it yet, and that city IMO was a waste for me to have built without pushing Moai.

What is our plan for military? I don't see a single unit being built. Failed spy missions are guaranteed to piss an AI off enough to declare war on us.

Zeila is our only city with a chance to get culture to touch Seoul. I would like to propose using one of our artists ASAP to merge into that city. Pushing east is the critical direction.

 

[Thrar]

Hawulti's next border pop (in 17t) will culturally reach Seoul. From that distance, we can't pump a lot in there anyway, even the effect of a GA would be negligible. Zeila is just as far away, 4th ring.
However, using spies, we don't have to care about distance. As long as we can reach the city at all, it can be flipped. So we can start spreading culture in Seoul whenever we're ready and rest assured that in 17t - probably well before we'll get even 50% there - Seoul will be within reach to flip.

I don't see military as important as LK at the moment. Our power is doing well and everyone but WK is at war anyway, which means they won't declare on us. We could start pumping some EP into WK to prepare spreading in Seoul and see his demographics, then make sure we're more or less on par with him in power.

We need more spies. 6 spies is enough for one city, but not two or more. I'm no longer thinking that attacking Monty soon is useful - we're pumping culture in there and the hinterland isn't very deep, so we can take our time. If we can get some more spies, I'd rather get started on Seoul or Darius' Tarsus to move east.
A spy needs 4-5 turns to get to the front at the moment. Add another 5 turns of waiting at the destination, I think we'll need at least 6 spies per city to spread at a decent rate, although I'd prefer having as many as 10 per city! This number will increase with traveling time, although railroads and later airports should help. Anyway, we need more spies!

 

[lymond]

As a general comment, I realize cottage cities are important. However, if we are not running the EP slider it doesn't do us that much good. Let's keep some cottage cities going, but I'd like to see some of these cities like Gondor and AA get more farms. With farms and jails/CH and later other espionage buildings, we can run a lot of spies which will provide constant "static" EP generation and marry well with Representation.

Biology will be a very nice tech to have as well.

Aksum can go to full time spy production after the bank. Actually, I would get out a spy this turn, finish the bank, and then queue up spies. Keep spies in the border cities - like 6 or more - and then use a spy each turn to run a "spread culture" mission - using the spy that sat in the city the longest. We really need to start taking over these cities. Gondor can go to straight unit pumping.

Also, we might try doing an occasional 1-off bump up of the EP slider to generate a ton of EPs in a matter of a turn or 2.

edit: Good TS Thy!

Overall, let's make sure we do some 2 or 3 pop whips to get out basic infra and put OF in key builds like Lkendter mentioned with Maoi.

 

[LKendter]

Hopefully correct Roster :
Haven't see Rolo post one.

r_rolo1
Thy_Spellcraft - Just played
Brian Shanahan -somewhere out there
lymond - UP
Thrar - on deck
LKendter
nocho

 

[Tatran]

Lurker's off-topic comment :

I know I'm predictable, but I'd like to find a second city to build military.

You would be close to a heartattack in CivWorld when it comes to military.

Example :
During a battle I was commanding/stancing my troops.
A few seconds later I was overruled by my Defense Minister who changed the stances of my troops.
I knew what I was doing, but I wasn't sure about the DM.
Very bad for your health.

 

[lymond]

oh crikee! Just realized I was up. I'll take a look at things this tonight and post a general plan soon.