RR13 - Hearts and Minds

[Thy_Spellcraft]

And even though LK would kill me for this purpose: Build culture to ensure the border-pop BEFORE SB finishes his totem pole!

And yes go and start on spies to get some more culture into SB's cities!

Techwise I think it's a good idea even though I'm not sure whether we'll get to const in time to lib demo.. But at least it would be worth a try!

 

[lymond]

Actually, I take back the GA for nat thing as I remember it will bulb DR first. although it interesting that Islam is still available. It would give us a bonus on DR.

I think we can still Lib Demo though

Do we want to try and build the AP?

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

I'd vote NO as we should rather use the hammers on spies or units..

 

[LKendter]

Overall though, I don't' think we are being aggressive enough and falling into the same trap as last game.

I don't think so. Nocho's set finished phase 1 natural expansion.
You turn set is the natural point to switch toward war based expansion.

After the forges are complete we can start to produce troops from high shield cities (Bombay, Delhi, etc) and spies in the lower production cities.
The key is our relations will tank fast, and we need troops for the guaranteed war.
I favor switching to war footing. The question is only how soon before we can declare war.

Despite my strong recommendation we still don't have the next border pop in Patal and therefore not bleeding culture into Poly.

This is the one spot in Nocho's set I don't understand.
When I looked at the game before his turn we had two missionaries ready to add religions.
It got Confucianism, but neither religious building?

I assume the goal is to Lib either Constitution or Demo. Obviously, getting to Demo would be ideal.

100% my target - SoL gives us a ton of free spy specialists, and we can finally start generate a decent of amount of SP, please we get jails for more EP generation.

Build culture to ensure the border-pop BEFORE SB finishes his totem pole!

He needs two turns, I don't think it is possible.

Do we want to try and build the AP?

NO - It is only worth it being Jewish, and we aren't in the position to adopt that anytime soon.
Plus we need to get on war footing.
My gut says Maya is close to finishing it already.

 

[lymond]

I went ahead and played. Built the Conf AP. and it looks like we should be able to Lib Demo quite easily. Vijay is building Taj, but we can change that if needed.

The kicker is that Shaka ended up declaring on us. He didn't send that many units and ended up suiciding most of his units with little loss on our side, as well as me picking a few off. A played a bit longer as I did not want to leave a war for the next person, but decided to stop. Shaka should make peace in the next turn or two I think. LK should be happy as I built more units.

Brennus took Cahokia and capped SB. He is now in fist mode. Not sure if he declares at please or not, but we need to be wary I guess. He might go after Zara.

Popped borders in Patal right as SB built totem in Poly. Our culture shot up to 82% immediately in Poly and we closed borders with SB upon request. However, the culture has gone down to about 51%. I think we would have definitely flipped this city if we had prioritized this much much sooner. I pushing the next border pop in the new city just north to add more pressure, but we may want a couple of spy hits as well. I'm really tired of that city.

We popped a GS in Varan. I'm sending to Delhi for an academy which should secure a Demo Lib.

Got a lot of infra in and a few spies out. All our spies have run successful mission except for the first one I built that got caught napping.

Agra had a Volcano event which is why I'm rebuilding improvements around there.

I settled city D which now has a Theatre and a Conf Mish from Mao. Cahokie should be much easier to flip now.

We should look to build some wealth and research as well as get some gold to get Const asap, and then grab Demo with Lib (which is already teched to 1turn)

 

[LKendter]

Built the Conf AP.

I thought the team agreed to skip it this game. Confucianism is pretty useless for an AP religion with so little of it spread.

 

[LKendter]

r_rolo1 -on deck
Thy_Spellcraft -
nocho -
lymond - just played
LKendter - Up

 

[LKendter]

External events really shafted us that turn. We simply can't fight Brennus. I count ~18 units just in Cahokia.

I feel at this point we CAN'T continue our plans vs. SB. Without being able to declare war on SB, we have NO hope to flip cities except via AP vote. We may get some that way.

I refuse to play until we have agreed on a new target for EP and flipping.
The options we have are
Celts are IMO impossible to fight at this time.
France won't work, as empire connection makes this impossible. We need to flip Burgundian before we can move on De Gaulle.
Maya is impossible until we flip some Zulu cities.

Zulu relations are shot, and I think we can make serious headway vs. him over time. It creates an ugly empire shape.
Zara is the suspected next target for Brennus. We are in the position to start moving on him, however if we hit him too soon Brennus could overrun him at which point this variant is unwinnable.

This game has been ugly from the beginning with SB capitol so close...

I do know I won't play another game of this type on normal speed. You need the extra turns for possible flips from epic speed.

 

[lymond]

I thought the team agreed to skip it this game. Confucianism is pretty useless for an AP religion with so little of it spread.

Sorry if I missed that decision, but totally disagree about Conf. as useless. In fact, quite the opposite. It sets up perfect for us. All we need is to make sure each AI has 1 Conf city, while we benefit from all those extra hammers. Plus, it guarantees we win the votes.

 

[LKendter]

1200 AD
I gave 24 hours for feedback, and got no comments on the EP spending issue. I set EP 50 / 50 between Shaka and Zara.

I wake up our lone chariot and start moving him toward our great general. At least one super healer is needed with all the planned wars.


1210 AD
(IT) Pascal wants us to give him education.


1220 AD
It will be ages before we get Poverty Point since war with SB is ages away now. I settle the last filler city in our core.



We build an academy in Delhi. We gain 26 beakers a turn at 100% science.
(IT) It will put our relationship with Zara in the toilet, but I agree with Brennus to cancel deals with Zara. He is SCARY.

1230 AD
I get to perform my first spy mission of the game. We have more culture in Poverty Point.


1290 AD
Shaka now has a serious 13 unit stack by Madurai, and 4 more arriving next turn.
I sign peace with him giving us map, $80 and $6/turn.

We still need printing press to grab democracy. I dial up Pacal, but even nationalism and all our gold won't get it from him. I then try education and all of our gold, and we get it!

(IT)


Our first AP option is forced open borders with all members.
After staring for a bit, I pass.


1300 AD
Brennus has stripped Cahokia to 2 units! The war declaration is coming soon, and it should NOT be us.


It is 4 turns to Taj Mahal completing, and it looks all but locked. This times well with us starting to build Mausoleum and security bureaus. It is time to kick into high EP mode.
Plus it should speed up getting banking, and switching to merc.

We need to pick a city to build SoL
Delhi is the best at 41 turns! I have Delhi as the tentative source. I got it down to 37 turns with firing the spy.
We can cut this again buy getting Copper from De Gaulle.
I will leave this for Rolo to decide the best combo for the trade.
Our major EP push will begin after SoL is built and we start getting those spy specialists.



We need to decide when to adopt Confucianism as our state religion. We can't get the assign city option unless we are a full member.
The clear danger is annoying Brennus.

I'm been running spy missions on SB to use up all of our EP with him. We still have a lot queued.

r_rolo1 - Up
Thy_Spellcraft - on deck
nocho -
lymond -
LKendter - just played

 

[lymond]

Sweet! Looks good on paper. I definitely think we should trade DeG for copper even if it means giving up some gpt. That will secure SoL and possible enable us to build it in another city.

I guess we will just keep Poly now. I'm surprised SB just doesn't give it to us. He might yet.

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, got it.

I'm still seeing the save, but DG is really being pricey on the copper ... stone+sugar + 4 gpt :/ Anyway, it cuts the building time from 37 to 23 turns in Delhi. BTW How about making it in varanasi instead ? 30 turns with copper ... after the Taj OFC.

Now on more strategical terms: we have a completely diferent situation from the previous game in hands. We have a quite powerful if somewhat dumb AI right on our border that ate one of our neighbours ( SB was really trashed by trying to settle against us instead of going against brennus ) So the focus is brennus ...

And what about Zara, Shaka and the irritant blue ? I'm not really seeing a good way of dealing with it, but i think that shaka could be dropped to 4th in our priorities list ( or 5th, if we want SB above him ). The other 2 ... well, DG has that annoying UB and Zara plays well. Decisions, decisions...

On confu: I really don't see the point of delaying it much longer. We will need to be ready for warring Brennus OFC, a thing that we aren't, but we have some time on this , since Brennus obvious target seems to be Zara ( he is annoyed with him and SB, while pleased with everyone else ... unless things changed a lot diplowise, I would bet on Zara ( or in a second place DG, third us ). BTW we need to discuss what to tech next... to be honest, i would push to rifles from now on. We get banking in the way, that is beneficial for us ( merc ) and with some luck we might even score the GM from Economics . That or going steel->RR, that anyway share the initial part of the tech path with the rifle path. I think we should not go communism ASAP even if we still have a lot of EP buildings to make

We only have 2 viable sites to settle now, the yuck tundra area and the one that is marked against shaka, that will be the obvious next. That means we should start thinking on getting the FP running ( really, we took ages in RR12 to make it ). I suggest Varanasi ... it is in a good place for that and the FP adds spy GPP to the already marked GP farm .

To end, we should halt spy spreading culture in poly IMHO, atleast for the time being. the city has almost no culture and spending spy turns to spread 2-3 culture is a waste. Any of the other SB cities is a better target and , to be honest Poly is not going anywhere soon ( their culture is anemic in there and we will not flip it so soon without cleaning the garrison ). Mound city case is similar. but there atleast it can still contribute to the borders arragement in the future.

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

Just one little thing to add: We're still in HR.. We should change this to Rep during your set rolo!

 

[LKendter]

I'm still seeing the save, but DG is really being pricey on the copper ... stone+sugar + 4 gpt :/ Anyway, it cuts the building time from 37 to 23 turns in Delhi. BTW How about making it in varanasi instead ? 30 turns with copper ... after the Taj OFC.

SoL is the KEY wonder to up EP. Do we really want to delay it 7 turns plus the time to finish Taj?
The question is how long are willing to stay Bur?

We only have 2 viable sites to settle now, the yuck tundra area and the one that is marked against shaka, that will be the obvious next.

Settler is already heading that way.

That means we should start thinking on getting the FP running ( really, we took ages in RR12 to make it ). I suggest Varanasi

Works for me.


Poly is more screwed with the city north of it adding culture during my set.

 

[r_rolo1]

I'm not sure on the Bureau->natio transition if we are going to go SoL in the cap. If we chose to build elsewhere, things are diferent ( since the cap will not be the strongest hammer site without bureau ) and we should revolt to Rep+natio ASAP. Things are very balanced regarding those two options, and to be honest, I'm not sure of which one is best.

I noticed the settler to the shaka spot In fact, to be honest, there is another spot to settle besides the two I mentioned: there is a gap in the ex-SB land west of Cahokia ( 3 W and 4 W of it, to be precise ). But it is too suicidal to put a city there without being able to reinforce it ( the rules disallow it ), especially being us in the path of war with Brennus.

And yes, poly is just a matter of time even if we do not put much more work in it, as soon as we clean garrisons. In fact i think that, besides stealing techs, we should only run missions in Poverty Point of the cities that SB still has ( Burgundian still has no culture of ours ), because it will help vs Brennus. In fact , we don't want to kill SB before we cash in all the land he lost to Brennus ... his culture in there also counts for the output of each spy mission.

 

[lymond]

I think we should put some pressure on Cahokia since it has like no Celtic culture at all.

I think we can hold off on Nat until we get some Sec Bureas up and a few more spies running.

 

[LKendter]

Right now we don't have enough to multiply with Nat.
I started several of our UU jail, but we need more of those out there before we have enough to multiple.
Once we have SoL, or at least Merc, then it is worth looking at.

The key is to we want SoL faster for EP bonus from the extra spies, of Nat without a lot to multiply at this point.

 

[r_rolo1]

I decided to give another look at the save and the simple change from Bureau to nat would give us 10 gpt due to upkeep and 4,5 EP/turn, while the bureau bonus in cap is of 12 hammers. So , yes, I'm sold to keeping Bureau for now. But not for long I would say ...

I'm thinking on trying out Sankore ... what do you say ? We have stone, only one civ has paper and we are already doing for AP proposes the buildings it boosts. The only caveat for that is that we can't sell stone to DG for copper ( we can rearrange our trades with pacal to liberate a spice, that will probably do ... we do not want to boost too much Pacal anyway, that is the one that we will let to the end most likely ).

We have a vote in the AP in this set ( 9 turns from now, if my BUG is not wrong ). I intend to change religion to confu before that and ask for Mound city or Poly. I also intend to go Rep in the beginning of the set ( anything else ? Merc ? i assume we will get banking in this set ).

BTW I intend to try on the economics GM if possible. I'll tech atleast Guilds and banking in my set, and will most likely start on economics, with gunpowder as backup if the GM is taken.

Anyway, I think I'll play tomorrow. Feel free to say stuff

 

[LKendter]

Keep Bur until SoL is complete, then go to Nat. In ~25 turns we should have a LOT more EP to multiply.

I agree with Rep. I didn't revolt as I wasn't sure how much we gain before merc. I was thinking to switch both at the same time.

I agree to flip to Confused ~8 turns. By then, Brennus should be fighting someone. The monster stack is on the move.

Sankore depends on the stone being left. I don't want to lose copper trade over this. SoL is far more important.

 

[r_rolo1]

I've been thinkering with the game and we can do the copper trade without losing anything except our self use dye, that it is not needed for now anyway. I think I'll try Sankore then

Rep will cost us our friendly status with pacal... no biggie. i would like to grab eng in a trade, but definitely not with him

BTW I've been thinking that, IF Zara is the target of Brennus, that we can lock him out of attacking Zara by simply closing borders with him. That has, pros and cons: I would love to see Brennus trashing those border cities of Zara, but I really do not intend to feed a monster. Besides that, if Brennus can't reach Zara, he will not plan any other war ( insert evil laughter ) and we can lock him out of wars ( including with us ), until we want to. That is somewhat cheaty and devious ... I'm pretty sure nocho would like it if he was online

So my plan about that is simple: if I see the Celtic SoD in our lands in direction of Zara, I'll close borders. The economical impact should be minimal and it basically castrates a AI that is clearly in a vassal everyone spree.