RR15 - Mills for D. Quixote

[nocho]

Played half a set last night, luckily in accordance with what timmy just mentioned.

Qin is dead, his crap city autorazed out of supreme awfulness. About to settle the crab city on the PH with the settler we had asleep. Will see about getting a settler for that other city timmy mentioned. Although nothing stellar, we might also settle a city west of the capital that has sugar, horses and a bunch of riverside grass (though the city itself wouldn't be riverside). Well, I'll get a settler out and next set we decide where to settle.

Sold monarchy to HC for 330 gold. With the conquest cash, that was just enough to full research literature and feudalism. Just started guilds. Building the HG now, Beijing whipped forge and market and is now busy with the NE. IIRC only one stable to go to complete quest. Workers are workshopping and water- and windmilling like there's no tomorrow. Vikings and Egyptians are ignored in their requests for helping them out in their little war with eachother.

I hope to finish and upload this evening.

 

[nocho]

It's getting late and I'm tired, but my brain is incapable right now of understanding why with 7 stables we didn't complete the quest, nor did I see we failed it for some reason.

We founded 2 new cities.

In other news, as previously mentioned, Qin is dead.

We finished HG. Beijing got the NE and loads of infra. Got some courthouses out and we're building wealth to speed up tech. 3 turns from guilds now. Our HAs are back in Kyoto. Hired 5 specs in the capital for a randomish great person in 5 turns.

I'd propose settling another city north of the sugar.

 

[r_rolo1]

Roster

r_rolo1
nocho -Just played
lymond - UP
LKendter -On deck
IdiotsOpposite
timmy827

Not much to discuss, I guess, barring settling places ... Oh , and the fact that we are going to have shiny knights in some turns

 

[lymond]

Got it. I'll handle this in the next day or two

 

[lymond]

Okay, TS played. Mostly uneventful as I just focused on getting a couple of techs in and military build up.

Good news - Capac built AP so we have hammer boosts. Ofc, the downside is attacking him will be a problem. I think we have to go for Ottos.

Built TGL in Beijing. Finish Guilds and Music in just a few turns. We still have the free GA as I was waiting for TGL to finish and Bureau to switch. We can start that first thing in the Next TS.

After Guilds and Music, using Gunpowder as a placeholder, I did several turns of gold focus in order to upgrade existing HAs. Most have been upgraded. I then finished CS. This is why we haven't teched much farther than that.

I've been building HE in Lali using Knight whips. Seems a good long term location, but if folks disagree, we can build it elsewhere and get fail gold. Likewise, I started Maoi up in that Gold city. Beijing would be a good place for it too but I don't like combining it with NE - still we could do that. Anyway, I figured we get fail gold for Maoi to - great fail gold NW.

Unfortunately, a barb galley popped up near gold city. I whipped a tireme but could not save the seafood in time.

I settled a spot west of Aksum that I thought was better than the one mark as it grabs more unused and valuable land while leaving another city on the coast for horse (and more trade routes). I have a settler ready for that spot as well.

Lots of new windmills and workshops. Many Buddhists buildings completed.



Here you can see I bulbed Philo. I was torn on this or an academy or holding onto it, but we are not commerce high nor have we the Mids for Rep, so this puts us closer to Lib. Tao went to one of the island cities FWIW.

Spoiler :

Ottos come begging for us to switch to Jud. I think not dude. We are gonna keeeel you!

Spoiler :

Completed the allotted number of stables for the quest. Took the only option of value IMO (+1 food). 7 free HAs can be nice if timed correctly, but to upgrade them now would be a pain. Sentry on every unit is just silly and wasteful.

Spoiler :

Oh...Hatty came begging for Aesths. I agreed to get her to Pleased for possible bribes or begs. Insignificant at this point.

So I think we can start a war here very soon. I think Lib either Chemistry or MT. Chem fits nicely to the variant for boosted workshops. MT will be ROFL stomp. It would be fun to really use those Oromos though. Anyway, we can finish up Gunpowder now or tech paper, double bulb Edu (bonus on Gunpowder) and then finish it as we move toward Lib. We need Engineering too for chem.

 

[timmy827]

Save please

 

[r_rolo1]

Now we have a save ...

Not much to say really. Our eco is finally on it's feet and we have a nice force of knights and HC will soon discover to what they are ( just be careful with the AP : we have +/- 40% of the votes and that might not be enough to block a vote to stop the war )

On Lib ... well, I'm all for MT at this point Chem is ok too, but we have all pointing to a mounted war anyway .

Anyway , Roster

r_rolo1
nocho
lymond - Just played
LKendter -UP
IdiotsOpposite -on deck
timmy827

 

[LKendter]

In the queue

 

[LKendter]

1010 AD
I switch to paper to continue the push for liberalism.
I begin to move our troops toward the Incan border. The Buddhist missionary wakes up to visit our island. We still have 2 unconverted cities.
(IT) I vote no on stop trading with Hatty. It doesn't gain us anything.


1020 AD
A settler on go to arrives at a craptastic location. This city has no food, so I am passing on building it.


1040 AD
Our new work boat rebuilds the pillaged seafood by Guangzhou after our trireme kills the offending barb.


Summary:
Our scientist researched the majority of education. I got military police into our empty cities.
A big old stack of knights are building up along the Incan border. A few stray longbows for occupation duty are on the way.

Liberalism is a *placeholder* tech. We can decide debate the tech path now.



r_rolo1 - On deck
nocho
lymond
LKendter
IdiotsOpposite - just played
timmy827 - UP

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

I haven't actually played, but skip me for now. I'd rather not screw us up, and I'm a bad war person.

 

[timmy827]

Got it, may be another day and half before I can play.

Since the game is basically won, I think it makes sense to just capitulate the remaining AIs as fast as possible. I will reroute our main stack to launch from Ottoland, going Tiwanaku->Cuzco->Macchu Picchu (nabbing all the wonders, especially getting the SoZ in Cuzco sooner). Ica can be taken by the stragglers (knights in the queue right now). He should surrender at that point. Also will buy Mehmed in after our DOW. We certainly don't need him but if we don't bribe him Huayna probably will. OTOH, mehmeds stack is laughable and can probably be shredded a few straggler knights...

Also means no more buildings aside from Granary and Courthouse. (Looks pretty well set up, almost everything on units).

I would go Nationalism->Gunpowder->Lib MT over Chemistry; we have plenty of production. (Although I expect knights are plenty to win the game and Curs will come too late to make
Another option is Replaceable Parts which may not be that far away (GS likely in few turns, bulbs PP, then only banking + RP, or even Lib RP). That will do more for our production than Chemistry, we have ~even number of mills and workshops but work far more of the mills. But I will park science on 0% as none of the goals will be reached in my turnset.

Any reason not to pop the Great Artist golden age now? The Mausoleum is in Bursa, it will be some time before we capture it (and if we cap the AI's we probably won't get it). Vassalage will be nice. May as well pick Huayna's Theology now too and adopt that during the golden age.

 

[r_rolo1]

Popping the GA now would mean to probably not be able to use it to adopt the Lib civics ( not that we really want them ). And to be honest, I would want some drafting ... ( aka adopting Natio, that we can't do ATM ) or to adopt Merc.

Anyway, techwise we have enough of leeway to actually tech either MT or Chem and lib the other. all AI lack Paper and only Hatty has Philo But I prefer the MT lib , although I can see why timmy wants 0% sci to bank some cash. Then we can decide between Chem trail and going RP.


On military terms, yes, go Tiwa->Cuzco->Machu Pichu and we will clear the rest later. Just a reminder : wait 2 turns before starting the war. That is when the next AP vote comes and it gives the time for our spy in Tiwa to reach 50% discount at attack turn if we attack from Konya southern border ... something like this:

Spoiler :

 

[timmy827]

First picked up these:

I stopped after losing grand total of 5 knights taking 5 Incan cities and the boatload of wonders. Huayna is ready to vassal but I haven't done that yet. (Note that I bribed Sulei in). Made one mistake - wisely paid HC 200 to adopt Caste (no whipped defenders) but should have done that to Suleiman as well.

Went ahead and did the golden age now despite RR's admonition. I thought waiting for civics was uneeded (we ain't adopting Mercantilism with the great lighthouse) I adopted Vassalge/Caste/Pacifism and ran a ton of specs in Beijing, we now have a GS and GM. But the Great Person stuff was silly. We have a net gain of 26 knights in 6 turns, which means that tech, great people, some future Oromo draft, etc. are totally irrelevant. Actually might make make sense to run the Espionage slider for spy revolts (although I only realized that at the end, we have a few more spies but none in position yet) as we don't need either tech or gold.

Recommendation: Cap Huayna now (no use dragging out, aim to vassal all the rest of the AIs), use his culture as a springboard to hit Ottomans all over the place. 4 cities should be more than enough to make him surrender.

(Because of the capitulation decision, I left a ton of units unmoved in violation of normal SG etiquette)

Could go back to slavery+theocracy before GA ends, go nuts whipping cities down.

Note we need not fear the AP, have enough votes to block from now on.

IO, I know you said you weren't a warmonger. But I envision there won't be any peaceful intervals longer than 1-2 turns the rest of the way out. So slot you back in the order?
You'll be fine with one principle - just use our strong 2 movers always, don't wait for anything. Throw away a few knights per city.

 

[LKendter]

GREAT progress, though not totally surprised.

This was was over IMO when kicked China off our landmass. Two capital quality cities that early, and one less AI next to us was huge. That left use to strong vs. Japan, and it has been downhill for the AI ever since.

 

[r_rolo1]

Looks good ...

I'm not so sure about 2 things, though:

1)

(we ain't adopting Mercantilism with the great lighthouse)

Not really , unless we are really going for the chain cap route. And as we're going to a conquest/dom win, we will DOW everyone and there goes the value of foreign trade routes ( the peace modifier goes away and the foreign cities get smaller due to whip and ). Not mentioning that we are in a Pangea and that apparently we are in control on the only known intercontinental spots...

2) Not sure on the HC cap. The pros and cons are always the same: we gutted HC and he will take quite a while to recover ... and we would have to need some extra garrisons to avoid revolts in the captured cities. OTOH, it is faster to cap him and move on north and finish the other stooges. To be honest, I'm tempted to finish HC : he is the more advanced AI and even Sully, that is the next one in line is pretty far away of having anything that stops our black riders

@ LK

You talk like if we were in a good starting spot We actually were in a terrible spot, squeezed between 2 Pro AI in a smallish penisula, while the rest of the AI had spare space to expand as they wished. This is probably the worst case scenario and I'm sure there are some forum members that would rage about unfairly distributed space if they got this We just understood our position early enough and acted accordingly ... and this is a level too low for our team, apparently

I'll wait for IO to say if he wants to play now or not ( I agree with timmy, mounted warfare is probably the easiest way of warring and we are on top of a already broken foe ). If he doesn't , I'll pick it.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Sure, I'll take it. I'll play sometime today or tomorrow.

 

[timmy827]

RE 2) Well, I assumed we would want the chain cap route because, as LK has said as well as I, it's over. Taking more cities just drags it out (both more turns total, and more time spent assigning tiles to not work unallowable improvements, picking builds, expanding borders etc in the captured cities)

Only 5 knights lost to vassal one AI - I bet we could finish this without building a single other unit or researching another tech from now on. Heck, I'd be fine declaring victory now and saying "completion of military win is an exercise left for the reader"

RE: mercantilism - good point, I had forgotten that each city gets has 2 2-commerce traderoutes to the island cities. (In retrospect, the resourcesless crap location Qin settled actually would have been good to keep for that reason). And examining the save, yes we are already using those overseas domestic in most cities. So merc could be sensible, we can launch a 2nd GA if needed, though again it's sort of window dressing now.

FWIW Huayna was teching Banking, but we've lost research visibility after spending the EP on a spy revolt. (I wanted to use it on Cuzco - more culture than Tiwanaku, and also attacked over the river and through the woods up a hill - so moved our spy, did not wait for discount - since we only had one spy at the time seemed very unlikely we would use a 2nd revolt). IIRC he was showing 3 turns to the tech when I took his capital but who knows now that he's lost his best cities and wonders. Also right now he is unwilling to cap and give Divine Right, although Banking is cheaper of course.

 

[nocho]

Yeah, nice progress. Wrap it up!

 

[r_rolo1]

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IO , still there ?

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Yes, yes I am. Too bad you guys don't go in OT, you'd have seen my rant on how much I hate grocery store customers.

(IOW, got called in)