RR13 - Hearts and Minds

[Thy_Spellcraft]

Report added..

And in my defence concerning the GT city: I drafted once but changed to FS afterwards. And it doesn't seem to be a good choice to whip spies that would need two turns. And as you alway underline: we need spies, spies and even more spies.. As I said: This could have been proven wrong..

 

[lymond]

Why are we in Free Speech?

 

[LKendter]

We need to discuss, what to do with the GSpy,

Which city doesn't matter to much. We've already covered our GP farm, so any city with plenty of cottages is good. For example, Calcutta has six cottages. That may be the best choice.

whether we want to stay in FS or change to natio once again.

As long as we keep plenty of spare EP, I vote FS.
That should speed up getting the push city vs. the Zulu and Brennus. Along with our new border push city getting toward Brennus core.
Time is our enemy, and right now our biggest issue is the next block of cities to push on. We need to open up new targets vs. Zulu.

And Burgundian seems no longer the critical city. The city north of it witch Brennus took seems to be the better push city.

I agree - I really didn't expect a pathway toward De Gaulle this soon.

And there's a second city in Ethiopian lands we could spread culture to.

Lalibela is a good target. It opens up a path to the Ethiopian capital.
Above all, we need to push toward the Zulu. The longest path left is to southern Pacal.

I still like pushing southern Brennus. Every city we flip toward Camulodunum keeps our front line the same length.


As for GT, the thought that keeps coming to mind for me is why did we waste the time to build GT, if we aren't going to use it? I would switch it to rifles and whip like crazy. Military is going to become more important, as more wars are a must to win this.

 

[nocho]

(xpost with LK)

Sort of plan.

Tech: rails, bio.

Civics: for now I actually like FS. We need some crucial culture pushes and FS helps here. In the east we should get hold of 3E of Ondini, as well as have an entrance to Adulis (due in 7 turns right now from Calcutta). Also our new city Ayodha should push asap due west. As neither Brennus nor Zara are redfisted, no immediate urge for drafting either.

Builds: culture stuff in the border towns, spy and prod stuff in our core (duh).

Workers: railroading.

Culture spreading: I'd like to spread a lot in Chartres. Should be cheap and is a good point for both France and Celtia. Besides the cities we're already working on, Snaketown, Yeha. Then the question is who we'll focus on next, including war, Zara or Brennus? If Zara then Lalibella and shortly Adulis can start receiving spy love, otherwise focus all on Brennus' cities (when in reach).

I presume we save the GM for (a weak) Sushi? GSpy another SY somewhere, or save for a GA?

 

[lymond]

I guess FS is okay in the short term, but it really takes away from the EP game and I assume we will start using the EP slider soon.

Thing with FS is that most of its benefit comes from raising the culture slider which we will not do. And even then it is based on the amount of commerce you have in the border cities, which could be marginal. Yeah, it boosts the static culture from buildings and specialists some but that doesn't compare to what you can get from commerce with the slider.

Nationhood provides a significant boost to EPs which will boost our spy game, which I thought this was all about.

edit: Furthermore, we cannot draft, which hurts another aspect of the game - warring to increase revolt risk.

 

[LKendter]

One comment on railroads - connect our spy building cities to the target cities first.
I'm less concerned with production that saving spies some turns walking to target.

We may want to build some more workers with rails coming up. We can't connect to the front fast enough.

The benefit of FS is the time to open up those border push spot cities drops in 1/2.
Repeating the line I keep saying - my number one worry is not enough turns left in the game. FS gets us more targets quicker. When we lack close border push cities targets / push (new one), I will gladly go back to Nat. Zero turn revolts for us makes it easy to switch around as needed.

 

[nocho]

Played 11 turns. Not too much picture-worthy.

Highlights:
* Teched rails and bio.
* Yeha got assigned to us through the AP.
* Snaketown suffered a revolt.
* Got SYs in Calcutta and Cahokia (or was it Poverty Point?).
* Brennus got red-fisted again, shortly after refusing to gift him democracy.
* SB vassaled to Zara, thus dragging Zara into war with DG.

Workers started railroading, first from the capital to the NW. Then decided to create a railroad more or less parallel to the Brennus front after he got red-fisted, so we can swiftly move troops depending on where he'd move his SoD. Also started rails towards Calcutta to reach the Zara front as well as some rails near Shaka territory. Obviously this is work still in progress.

After we got cultural presence in Adulis, decided to focus spies there (without doing missions yet) instead of Lali, basically because it will help towards Shaka as well, and by that Pacal. I think that's a higher priority than working towards the Ethiopian capital. Besides it has confu, which makes missions cheaper and opens up AP possibilities later.

Brennus-wise concentrated many spies in Camulodunum because it's quite strategically located. I don't think we need to build the marked city site. We just got acces to Verlamion as well. Besides we've been doing quite some missions in Chartres where culturally we have a solid majority now. Burgundian got enclosed with our culture, unfortunately with a rather big remainder of SB's SoD, so no revolt chance currently. Snaketown also dropped a lot as Brennus parked some units there.

Lot of infra built, mainly levees and IAs. Also some more spies.

We might want to switch back to nationalism soon, though honestly I don't fear Brennus too much anymore.

 

[LKendter]

If the new cities keep coming every turn, we have a good chance to win it this time

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

 

[LKendter]

I really like the progress vs. Brennus. I didn't realize Camul would open up so quickly for us.
Chartres is also going fast, opening up a path toward De Gaulle soon.

My MM request - Troops to Yeha (empty) and hire two artist to open up more cities in Ethiopia to assault.

Our challenge continues to be access to the Zulu front. Can we build a theater in Prayaga and hire two artists? We need to open up more Zulu cities quickly. That is the one direction that worries me.
Ondini badly needs more culture buildings. We only gained 6% on the push city location.

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, gave a quick skim to the save ...

IMHO we are in good condition, but there are some regards i can add:

- First and more important, we need more confu in the world Brennus looks like a especially tasty target ( and no, I do not consider us as his #1 target ). Shaka as well ( he needs to get out of Theo ... ) and maybe Zara. This is not just because of the shrine ( it doesn't hurt, though ) neither because of the EP missions ( again , it doesn't hurt ), but because of the AP. AP has been a quite reliable way of getting cities without waiting for a revolt and we should expand on that as much as possible.

IMHO basically all of the front cities of brennus should have confu, from Shangian to Chartres ( this includes Camulodunum ) for us to be able to plug them out to us as soon as we want them ( for a example, snaketown already made it's part to reach other cities and could join our realm )

- Brennus ... IMHO we are not the target of his build up ( atleast I do not think that the odds are stacked against us ) ... Zara and DG are fighting eachother and brennus hates both, so he might be thinking on a dogpile to one of them ( most likely DG ). To add , his army is all in his northern border, so, even if we are the target, we have some warning time.

Anyway, as a precaution, remove all workers out of the borders with him

- We need more ... spies Only 38 ?

- OK , let me bold this : I'M SEEING ONE MILITARY UNIT OF OURS OUT OF OUR BORDER in french territory.

- What do we do with SB? We can't spread religion to him to AP stunt on his last city ... and his stacking of units disallows rebelion . Warring with Ethiopia is probably unwise at this point ... atleast until Brennus shows his colors.

- On mission focus .... Camulodunum, atleast until we can reach Brennus cap. Chartres as well. Vermalion and Shangian should also receive missions until we can nag both via AP. On Ethiopia, definitely Adulis, as nocho says ( remember to sabotage that SB )

- Techwise ... after AL we should trail to Radio. Grabbing Eifell will make a big diference. That means Astro -> Physics-> Electricity-> Radio ( maybe a detour to Arties, depending on the way things go military wise. It is fun to see how much we got so far without any major warring ). No one will trade with us at this point, so it will be all self research

 

[nocho]

Just noticed I actually only played 9 turns instead of 11... Anyway, I queued AL but maybe we should just go medicine for Sushi. We have the GM at hand after all. Right now we have only 2 sea food and 3 rice, but we may be able to trade for more sea food. The culture could help in Ondini... Maybe we can get confu here and then a confu cathedral? It could also just start building culture after the levee.
Indeed get some troops in Yeha, completely forgot about it.

 

[nocho]

- OK , let me bold this : I'M SEEING ONE MILITARY UNIT OF OURS OUT OF OUR BORDER in french territory.

I thought to scout the territory a bit, forgot about not being able to do that with a military unit. My bad. Did we lose now?

 

[r_rolo1]

If I were other SG leader I would force you to replay the set But this is minor, so, I'll let it pass ...

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

I'm not completely sure, but I forced Shaka into Conf and as far as I know he didn't change this during my set.. So we could spread Conf to him as it should still be his state religion..

 

[LKendter]

I'm not completely sure, but I forced Shaka into Conf and as far as I know he didn't change this during my set.. So we could spread Conf to him as it should still be his state religion..

Not with his borders closed, and refuses to talk about opening them.

 

[lymond]

Okay, a few points on plan:

1) I think we should go for Astro>Physics now and then Medicine>AL

2) Once IW finishes in Delhi, I will have Delhi focus on Confused Mishes and Spies and maybe some weath building

3) Civics: Once we get up a few key buildings should we consider Pacifism? I still like Nationhood better than FS. If we run corps I think we should be in Free Market

4) Some cities are not working enough tiles. I'd rather have cities work their tiles and grow into spies. We are losing a lot of food, commerce and hammers but not doing this. I will make adjustments.

5) I does look like Bren might be focused on DG, but I will reinforce the area. I did not realize SB broke away and vassaled to Zara. It would be nice to see SB disappear.

6) I will spread Conf everywhere and focus on Celtic border cities first and then Zara and Shaka. You can still gift mishes to Theo civs. However, we could consider using spies to switch them out as well.

 

[LKendter]

1 - How about medicine first to get Sushi up and running? We only have 5 resources at the moment, but we need to push those borders cities faster. Ondini and Prayaga first.

2 - One Delhi has IW, the most expensive troops possible. Spy will be very wasteful in Delhi. I don't think we are hurting enough to justify wealth. We need some troops along Brennus border to be safe. We need to get the point of starting another war soon (Zara?).
I would get the missing IA built, then a ton of machine guns. A few stack protectors would be nice.

3 - I don't think another GS will matter much toward overall EP generation. I don't see the advantage of going pacifist. With our military size I expect our budget would get slaughtered going this way.

 

[lymond]

Good point on the military budget with Pac

The GS could be saved for a possible future Golden Age. We do have MoM. The airships will be handy as well in battle. It does not appear we will be able to trade for Astro, so I think we should get it out of the way. Sushi is marginal on this map so I see no need to expressly rush it. We will get med soon though and I expect to found Sushi during my TS.

Yes, Delhi does need the IA. I will have it focus on units and mishes then. I want to get mishes out fast.

I will laugh hysterically if Shaka attacks me for the third time in my TS.

 

[LKendter]

Missionaries will be very wasteful in Delhi with IW.

Is there another city that can do them? Maybe GT city whip a bunch.

I think Shaka will attack SB next

 

[lymond]

Okay...I went ahead and played

In many ways, it was a fairly straightforward TS despite the fact that Brennus DOW'd on the second turn. Honestly, it surprised me a little but I had started moving more units to the border cities. Also, I thought he would have more units, but really his armies weren't all that intimidating and his maneuvering was odd.

Brennus seemed to target Madras and Cahokia/Mesa Verde and Poverty Point. The biggest stack went towards Madras, SLOWLY. I picked off all his units with maybe 1 or 2 losses on our end at most. Pretty laughable.

In my mind the war is a good thing. Since we have a path to Snaketown, I sent a stack outside the city and have been pummeling it each turn to 1 unit, so the revolt risk is rather high.

Note that Ayodhya was targeted pretty hard too a bit later and appears to be his main target at present, although he has not attacked at all in a couple of turns.

Brennus is apparently rebuilding his army. There is is a rather large stack his amassing back in Isca, but not many units at his front. Pummeling a single city for a long time seems to throw the AI off quite a bit like they don't know what to do.

We can also hit Chartres now with an army - from Madras - and Numidian. Chartres has a good bit of Indian culture but not Numidian though.

Major spy missions focused on Camulodunum and Adulis primarily, but also Snaketown and Verlamion got some hits. I'm also starting to send spies Shaka's way as well.

I stopped EP on SB and Pacal for the time being. Did not see any point to it.

I got OB with Shaka by trading DR for a small bit of gold. I then ran a mission to switch him to OR and I have spread Confused to 2 of his border cities. I think we should spread it to all his cities while we have the chance.

I switched to Nat earlier because of the war, and Theo later in hopes of possibly getting OB with Zara. However, I'm not sure that will work for us since our relationship is so low. Probably should switch to OR at next chance.

Medicine is in and Sushi founded. We can Domino chain the Execs. I would actually spread to a couple of high prod cities regardless of whether they are on borders just so that those cities can start producing execs faster.

I did go Astro first but both DG and Pacal already had Physics, so to Med I went.

I got up a ton of infra and i think most EP buildings are up in most cities. We should try to get in a few Observatories here in there in relevant cities to keep research apace. I built a couple already like in Delhi.

SY in Lahore with new Gspy and EP output is looking nice. I think we gained almost 500 EPs during the TS.

As for Brennus, he was just willing to negotiate this last turn. I think we should just keep the war going as it should give us Snaketown soon. Shaka DOW'd DG, possibly from a Zara bribe. We have an open path to Adulis now, so war with Zara is an option. It would allow as to take care of SB once and for all. Might be a good time to start a war with Zara actually since he and Shaka are at war. Pacal is a concern, but I'm pretty sure we can demand all his gold for a Peace Treaty.