S-04 HC's worst nightmare

[mike p]

OK. Looking at the save, it might be beneficial in the long run to move the capital to Moscow, of course, in the long run we'll probably be overrun by AI anyway. I do send a couple of units out of the capital to level up on barbs SE of Cuzco and send the medic axe north where the action seems to be.

515 AD Our Spearman near St. Pete's kills off a French Horse Archer.

2 Barb archers approach our worker building a road to Tiwananku. That city will probably never be productive for us. For some reason the barbs skirt along Egpyt to make a beeline for us, and Hatty will take the city just to the north of it soon, which means that since she's Creative, she'll get the Ivory and Sheep in the overlapping tiles.

I also lose a Combat 2 Shock axeman attacking a Spanish Combat 1 axe on a flood plain. That was one of only 2 bad rolls this set, so that's OK.

530 AD A spear kills another French Horse Archer. But our swordsman dies attacking a catapult. Alas, bad roll #2. Our axeman cleans up the remains though.

545 AD Loius shows up with longbows. This is going to get not fun pretty quickly. I promote one of our axes to cover and really wish the Sword of St. Petersburg was still alive. He's got a longbowman and a horsearcher and I manuever to the hill tops so he'll have to go across the plains to get to St Pete's.

560 AD A barb archer assailing Uzbek is killed by one of the swords I moved out of Cuzco. We're spread pretty thin between Uzbek and Tiwananku.

575 AD Revolt to Bureaucracy. I haven't made any trades with it yet, figure I'd leave that up to the team. Pick construction next because a few cats will let us start decimating Spanish cities.

590 AD Monty demands that we cancel our deals with Egypt. I tell him no.

We have a spear and two axes opposing a French longbow and horse archer, neither of which is getting a defensive bonus since I've been camping out on the hills near St Pete's. We're only 30% to kill the longbowman, but I figure that as long as we wound him enough, we'll be trading an axe for longbow and HA. So I attack, we lose, but redline the longbowman. Our spear can pick of the Horse archer, and the other axe cleans up on the wounded Long bow. St. Pete's is safe for now though.

605 AD Actually, Loius sends a single HA to harass St. Pete's again, but our newly built spearman can reach him this turn and kills him.

620 AD Khan demands Fur. I give it to him, since we're already fighting two wars already.

And there are more Frenchies coming up from the south of Cuzco (A HA and a cat).

635 AD A Spanish Archer is in position to pillage a mine near Novgorad, but I can't do anything about it, since Izzy has an axe and another archer on our door and I only have 2 axes there. I'd much rather lose the mine than the city.

650 Monty declares war on us. On the bright side, after killing the two units Louis sent towards Cuzco, he's willing to give us 10 gold for peace, which is much more reasonable than his earlier offers of our giving him St. Petersburg. Isabella is also willing to give us 100 gold or so for peace, so it looks like we're wearing them down some.

I stopped here at 10 turns. I suggest we make peace with the French and Spanish and take the fight to Monty. Hopefully with a couple of catapults we can grab a few cities near our capital for low upkeep.

Do we want to trade Civil Service around?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/56599/HC_s_worst_nightmare_AD-0650.Civ4SavedGame

 

[sooooo]

Agree with making peace with Spain and France and suggested. Only AI with CS is Kublai. We could get construction, HBR and feudalism for it, but I think we should hold off until someone is willing to trade metal casting.

We should whip an army and take Monty on. We really need some culture in Tiwanaku to get access to that ivory. And some reinforcements in that city against the barbs. Use the GS in 2 turns for an academy in Cuzco? Then we can assign the specialists back to food tiles for better whipping.

Qwack is up.

sooooo
Cosmichail
mike p
Qwack - UP
pindicator - On Deck
blid

 

[Qwack]

Nice progress guys, ill have this played tonight.

 

[mike p]

sooooo, I meant to point out that we'll have a GS in two turns in the capital. Would suggest putting those scientists back to work in the fields once the GS arrives, but put them in commerce rich tiles. There's a town along the river that's going unworked, and the capital should get the most of bureaucracy that it can. Or does the bureaucracy hammer bonus apply to whipping too?

If we can spare a build there, perhaps we could sneak a missionary into the queue to pop the borders for the ivory, but obviously defense is the first priority.

 

[Qwack]

Played 10 turns. This was a very diplomacy oriented turnset. Start off by pulling off a few deals. First, kill Isabella's archer on the hill, then declare peace. Heres how it looked:



She has seen the light. Good girl. Loius, do you see the light also?



Horay! See, who needs war when we can all get along together. We will forgive you loius, because you gave us 20 gold. Now.. why dont you do this for us?



Very nice. Loius, you are learning. I had checked to see what we can get out of civil service before doing this, and it wasnt much. Victoria was offering 50 gold, which meant she was probably about to research it. And we had nothing to research except metal casting, so I saw no reason in holding CS off. A turn later, Hatshepsut picks up feudalism..



Me like it when a plan comes together. I bring our entire army from the north back near monty's border. Our weakened troops werent enough to hold off his initial stack, and he managed to pillage 2 tiles before I could kill it off. Metal casting researched in 740 AD, machinery next for maceman..



Victoria comes to us and tells us to declare on Kublai. I decline. Loius and Isabella both come with offers for open borders(They both saw the light), I decline Isabella and accept Loius's offer. And thats about it, we have a decent stack getting ready to attack Texcoco, I chopped a theatre in Tiwanku and it will expand borders to pick up the ivory in 5 turns. Ive also whipped St.Petersburg for 2 population. I did not whip Cuzco though, it is producing a unit every 4-5 turns, so I really dont see any advantage in whipping it.

Save:

 

[sooooo]

Good stuff Qwack. Pindicator is now UP to take the fight to the Aztecs, with a little help from the French. T-Hawk stated in another thread that maintenece costs on this map are much higher than usual because of the two wrapping axes. That's annoying, because the immortal AIs get big discounts on this cost.

sooooo
mike p
Qwack
pindicator - UP
blid - On Deck

 

[Cosmichail]

Maintenance..

That's probably the black hole I see on my computer. The money pouring into the Quantum Singularity.

The game is going well keeping them at bay and hopefully take out the Aztecs. Am still lurking and following the game as I always learn something in Soooo's games.

 

[pindicator]

I think our diplomacy has been great so far. The more we get the AIs angry at each other, the less chance they'll come after us. But it definitely is time to start taking it to Monty: I'll whip us up some catapults for an assault on our green friend. Will take a closer look at the save later tonight and post a game plan. I will probably have time to play tomorrow night.

(Oh, this is my got it)

 

[pindicator]

First off, I want to give a BIG on the diplomacy front. Getting other AIs involved in war is absolutely necessary and very worth the techs. Turning France from an enemy into an ally brought tears to my eyes Okay, maybe not, but I loved the move.

There are a number of things we need to get done, and I'll try to do that during my 10-15. Here are my plans, which I'm listing in case the team wants to veto me.

Novgorod
This is a production town, and those cottages have no business being there. They were a good idea early on when our economy was barely being propped up, but now they are superfluous. I'll spare grassland one until I can get some irrigation there. I think soooo was the one who mentioned Heroic Epic here and I agree 100%. I'm swapping that town to go Forge -> Heroic -> Units until infinity. We'll do some chops here too to get the Forge and HE online quickly, because we really need the units.

More workers
We probably need 3-4 more, but I won't be able to make that many. And we'll want a settler, too, for that town 2W of the whales that we've only talked about doing forever. I'll try to get the settler + 1 or 2 workers in my turns.

Military
Our units are not the type that are used to take cities: axes promoted to shock moving against a city on a hill guarded by LBs?? And we've left ourselves wide open to a Spanish attack in the north. We really aren't in any position to take on Monty. I do agree that Texcoco is the next town we want to take, but it's not going to happen until we get maces and more cats. I'm probably going to shuttle some troops up north to defend and then produce/whip maces and cats. But I don't feel there's any plan here and I don't know entirely what to do with how little we have.

I'm looking at the Barb city to the west of Cuzco and it's not that bad: the pigs will be a 4f tile, the deer a 4f1h tile, and two lake tiles will be 3f3c with a lighthouse. Add in a grassland hill tile and two grassland tiles and this could be a nice commerce town for us. Something for us to pick up if we get the chance. Because Hatty is heading there with a stack right now!

 

[sooooo]

Not sure about that barb city. The pigs and deer will both be 2F tiles. It would be nice to have, but I think Hatty will easily take it. Still, we should send a sword or two to see if we can snatch it.

I don't think we have to wait for macemen to take Texcoco. What we need are more cats - all cities on military should be on cats.

Our units are not the type that are used to take cities: axes promoted to shock moving against a city on a hill guarded by LBs?? And we've left ourselves wide open to a Spanish attack in the north. We really aren't in any position to take on Monty. I do agree that Texcoco is the next town we want to take, but it's not going to happen until we get maces and more cats. I'm probably going to shuttle some troops up north to defend and then produce/whip maces and cats. But I don't feel there's any plan here and I don't know entirely what to do with how little we have.

I think there is a good plan here. I think we simply have to risk Izzy not declaring on us and put our efforts into going after monty. There are only 2 longbows in Texcoco, but we only have 1 cat in the area. He will take a few turns to bombard the defenses, but once that happens we just have to lose a few units while taking the city. We have two CG2 archers around (in Cuzco) to stop it being retaken. We don't have enough money to upgrade our units anyway, so losing them while taking cities is not much loss.

I think we cancel the library in Nov and start the HE here. Whip Salamanca's granary too. I wouldn't farm over the cottages at Nov just yet, as we do not need the food until our mines are built. You are right about us needing another worker and settler - just not sure where to build them while we need cats. Olmec?

 

[pindicator]

I thought pastures on pigs netted +3 food; chop the forest for the pasture and it's a 4f tile? Anyway, I finally played:

Started things off by switching Moscow to a Catapult, switching Novgorod to Heroic Epic, thought long and hard before deciding I wanted to go for a Lighthouse in Tiwanaku (but am not sure that was the right move yet), and whipped the granary in Salamanca.

Took a look at the diplomacy screen. Thought this was worth bringing up:

Looks like Louis and Hatty are best buds, so maybe we should be friendly to Louis too? (At least for now?)

1) 815AD
Khan asks us to join in against Victoria. No thanks.
Izzy wants us to give up Feudalism + 40g for Horseback Riding. Um, no.

Hatty's stack disappeared? Guess they're not going after the barb town after all.

2) 830AD
Start St. Pete's on a settler.

Ugh, Hatty does something to sour our relations:

Now we're going to need to push culture out of Tiwanaku. We will fight over the gold, but the sheep is probably gone. At least we'll be able to keep the ivory.

3) 845AD

Make this trade with Louis to help relations (and happiness):

Louis is also short of Iron.

5) 875AD
Machinery is in. Set us to Philosophy (due in 8 at current pace), as only Victoria currently has it.

Tiwanaku's borders expand:

And I doubt Hatty will have trouble taking that barbarian town.

8) 920
Texcoco just put out another LB, so I'm waiting for a few more catapults to arrive. In other news, Hatty is throwing everything she has at the barb town. I've got 1 sword in the area, hoping he can get lucky.

I also pull this deal with Louis:

It's not much of a deal, but it gives us cash to continue spending and hopefully improves relations with Louis, and everybody else seems to know it now.

10) 950AD
Ready to attack Texcoco. Here is the setup:

Sacrifice 3 catapults:

Combat II, Cover axe loses at 16%, knocks LB to 1.4
Combat I, Cover, Shock axe wins at 15%!!!
Sword wins at 97%
Cover Sword wins at 98%

That went smoother than expected. Catapults and a little bit of luck made it possible. Speaking of luck, we're going to need it if we want to snatch up Cuman:

We really have no shot at it, but you never know. Also, Khan has a horse archer and a catapult in Hatty's lands to the west of Tiwanaku. Doesn't look like a proper stack, but he isn't too happy with us lately.

Monty won't take peace. Looks like we need to take a few more towns, but we're going to need more catapults. I've got a couple maces being built, and was planning on another round of catapults. St. Petersburg is finishing up a Settler. Cuzco also snuck in a worker. Novgorod is 12 turns away from the Heroic Epic.

For technology I was thinking of a run towards Liberalism. This is a game heavy on warring, so possibly we want to head for Guilds. I bet we could take Monty's horse resource (wherever that is) and start making some knights. Since Iron seems to be rare, there would only elephants to take those. Speaking of elephants, that should be the next job of the worker at Tiwanaku: connecting Ivory.

I played 10; should I have done 15? I'm too used to C3C SGs, even if I don't play them any more.

 

[blid]

Nice job pindicator, axes taking down LBs is a rare sight
I'll check if there's other interesting aztec cities. Monty doesn't want to hear about peace anyway so we better make him change his mind. I'm planning to change the maces builds to cats. We don't have enough of those. We can upgrade a couple of our highly promoted axes to maces. Hope Hatty or Louis would help us with some money for that
Monty and Isabella are technologically backwards, can't you tell that they chose unwisely ? Speaking about that, Vicky should be treated as a pariah, no tech trading with her and if we can avoid, all other sort of trades too. Financial bastards, phewww. What nightmare did she come from by the way ? Did you play Vicky in an SG before sooooo ?

 

[sooooo]

Yep, good work Pindicator. I like your plans blid - go get 'em! I did not play Vicky before, but her face is something that would appear in a worst nightmare.

Pindicator: Play 10, 15, whatever you feel like.

 

[pindicator]

Good call on the cats, blid. I was a little star-struck by the prospect of building maces.

 

[blid]

Sorry for keeping this so long, had some long work days lately. So here we go :

I start by switching maces to cats in Cuzco and Moscow like discussed. Hatty is willing to gift us some gold

I burn it immediately on an axe->mace upgrade. I do another upgrade with our own reserves. Theses guys are level 5 and 4, they better stay alive !!

Louis made peace with Monty. What cowards they all are. Someone out there finished the hanging gardens. We really can do with horses to go explore the remaining parts of the world

I start by regrouping troops and healing wounded units. An axe is sent to check the aztec city in the peninsula east of Cuzco.

We can trade gems for silver with Kublai. I check active trades and see he was getting fur for free. Probably a demand. I cancel that and make him pay fur coats with silver coins. Kublai has 5 spare sources of copper. He must have one in nearly every city

Hatty just razed the barb city. Brining all that stack just to raze Cuman !!!

Don't know if we need to build a settler for that city or to grab it with the one planned for the fishing village. If the spot is left alone, Izzy would probably claim it

That city east of Cuzco, Tlacopan, is pressed by french culture, so I would let it be

When we get philo, the only tradable techs are theology and HBR. I hold on the tech. Vicky would trade it away now since it's no longer a monopoly but I think she has all the techs apart from music and Louis won't give it since it's monopoly. I go for paper since no one knows it yet.

Hatty came asking for free philo, I check and there is still no interesting trades so I refused. She is still pleased.

Izzy came asking for drama. This was more reasonable a demand and I agreed. Check her and she don't have antyhing on her hands. We are safe or should I say she is safe for now

I lost an axe to a horse archer attacking Texcoco. I hate when they appear out of the blue like that. The spear there should heal and be able to cope with future threats

Vicky wants me to convert to christianity. No way. She don't know I decided to ignore her in this game. Well, at least until she declares war or we do

Monty is willing to sign peace. He offers 10 gold. Go home

I whipped a market in Cuzco and started a mace after it

Texcoco is out of revolt and starving. A granary is not whippable so I whip a theatre. It would help us get the culture to grab the nice resources in the second ring. It is already paying for itself, with the expansion it would net us nice extra commerce

An aztec cat managed to get near Cuzco so I am forced to upgrade one of the archers to longbow to deal with him. Don't want him to pillage our nice villages

I start bombarding Tlateloco. This is a city with corn and pigs.

I don't even bother to check what else is there, may it be all desert

I whip a forge in Uzbek. Lot of food there and not much hammers (forge was still taking 28 turns). But workers are there building a mine

I have decided to take ex Cuman site with the settler and see an egyptian settler. Don't know where she's going to settle. I checked the blue circles and they were 2 tiles away. I hoped she would go for it and sent the settler for ex Cuman on the hill

Kublai offered open borders and I didn't want to deny him. He is friend with Louis and cautious with Hatty so it should be OK. Still only HBR and theology on the trading table. What the heck ? this is immortal. Seems like the AI are struggling with the lack of food

The only serious counter attack on our stack in Aztec lands consisted of a cat, HA, phant and LB. Talk about mixed arms. Problem for Monty is that he had nothing to deal with maces in a forest. Our 2 maces handled it all and went out barely scratched.

Hatty annoyingly didn't go for the blue circle and settled ElAmarna before I can settle new Cuman.

I'm leaving the settler where he is. We have the option to settle on the coast 1south to culture press Hatty from both sides or just get him back to the fishing village. Hatty is creative, so it would be hard to do this. I switched to a theatre in Uzbek by the way to be safe. I started a forge in Cuzco but if we decide to settle south of elAmarna, we may train a new settler in the capital for the fishing village


Now, to Tlateloco battle :
The city is down to 0% defense, so I launch the attack :
first couple of cats got collateral damage and one retreated. The defending longbow is not scratched. The next couple got city attack and one retreated. Then all our units win and I take the city with last available attacker

See that clam. I love this city !!! The pigs are 7 food. Feels like national epic should go here, don't you think

Monty probably don't have horse archers nearby to take back the city IBT so we can reinforce it next turn. He is willing to pay this for peace :

Don't know if we should take this or push over to get the capital. Horses may be there. In any case, Monty should not be a threat any more. I think this is time to decide on a long term strategy. If we want a domination win, we may leave Monty alone and go for a stronger AI. The only immediate option is Hatty since we don't have borders with Louis or Kublai. She is our best friend and a reliable AI (no backstabbing) so we may consider carefully before doing such a thing. We can also go against spain to get a breach to Kublai or Louis.
If we go for peaceful victory (space or maybe diplo though it would be hard with all different religions around and relations with Kublai are not that hot), then we should finish aztec then consolidate our empire and put focus on economy and diplomacy to avoid future wars

Another thing before I hand over the game, optics is finally on the table. We can trade away philo for theology and optics and eventually a new AI-AI war. Louis and Hatty won't go against each other, they are in our triangle diplo so I guess it makes sense. We can send Louis against Kublai but this would probably make Kublai sign peace with Vicky and we don't want that. Spain is weak, so if we send someone against it, he would probably take some cities and get even stronger. I am not seeing an interesting option for an AI-AI war here so maybe one can think out something

save

 

[sooooo]

Good turns as usual Blid. I think we can delay the decision on what victory to go for until we capture most of the Aztec lands. I like the idea of allying ourselves with Hatty and Louis (do we have any hindu cities?) and forming a trade embargo against Vicky and Kublai.

I'll see if I can play this tonight, try to go after Monty's capital.

 

[sooooo]

Well I played 15 turns but barely achieved anything.

On the inherited turn I whip a granary at Texcoco, library at Salamanca and library at Tiwanaku. I move the settler towards the whales+fish spot. Don't think we can flip that egyptian city. We don't want it anyway - it is now 1 tile off the coast so those lake tiles are only worth 2 food.

Good news next turn - we get Hinduism in one of our towns (Tiwanaku). I won't convert yet because our border with Izzy is poorly defended and she is more powerful than us.

On turn 3 I found Machu Picchu:



Paper comes in, we start Education. We traded for optics from Hatty, to let us build some whaling boats.



Monty's HA pillaged a farm, but we kill it. Well, we find the Confucian holy city, but it is on a hill and defended by some promoted longbowmen.



Our measley stack will have terrible odds. Monty's capital is around here, but we cannot take it even if we could because of Teo's culture. We've got to sign peace and come back later with a larger, more modern army.

We get peace for his world map, 190 gold and 5 GPT.

Kublai asked for help in his English war again, and again I turned him down. Later in the turnset he signed peace with her.

Meanwhile, our recently aquired size 13 city only has a hapiness of 2 because it is not connected to our empire (monty's borders expanded and encompassed our road). So I slaved it down there anyway by building a granary, library and theatre. It needs culture to take back the floodplain pigs and corn. It started on national epic.

I cancelled the silver for fur deal with kublai because we have our own silver now. We also have incense and are getting it from Louis, but I keep this in case someone planned it to boost relations.

The world map we got from Monty was interesting. Wondering why Kublai is first in score? Take a look at Karakorum:



Pindicator will be proud of me because I finally farmed over the cottage at novgorod. After the Heroic Epic, this city built a forge and then a couple of longbows to shore our spanish border up. I think we have enough of a force nearby to go to hinduism if we want.



Mike is up now, and Qwack on deck.

 

[pindicator]

We also have incense and are getting it from Louis, but I keep this in case someone planned it to boost relations.

Somebody did exactly that!

Speaking of trading with Louis, did you see he will trade us horses? We could build knights, and Monty has no iron to build pikes with and no ivory to build elephants with. Scratch that, Monty does have one ivory source and it is just south of Cuzco, easily pillagable.

Pindicator will be proud of me because I finally farmed over the cottage at novgorod.

I was harping it, but I never did it myself either. We are going to want to irrigate this town as much as possible to work all those hills. There are some scenerios where windmilling hills nets more hammers than mining, and it loosk like that is the case for Novgorod here, especially once we hit replaceable parts for the +1 hammer in windmills.

Tiwanaku looks like it is going to be squeezed culturally. Hatty now has cities on 3 sides of it. The gold tile is at 52%, and I'm guessing that number may go down. We are going to need to prop it up with culture builds, and it may get squeezed even worse later on.

I spotted another spot to expand to, should we want to spare a settler:

It'd be another good fishing village to help with the economy. The solid red dot is my recommendation because, although the red circle is the better city site, it will be pushing against Louis' borders and lower our relations.

Still on economy, we only have 3 courthouses. If we get 3 more up, we can build the Forbidden Palace, which would be great for our economy considering the distance costs on this map.

 

[sooooo]

Speaking of trading with Louis, did you see he will trade us horses?

Yes, he offered me an iron for horses heal. But I declined it because he is not yet friendly towards us and more powerful. Plus we can't build knights anyway. Once we have guilds and he is friendly (convert to hinduism?) we can do the trade.

I think Hinduism would be good soon. Kublai and Victoria don't care so much about religion, but Louis and Hatty care a lot. The only problem we have is that we are still vulnerable to Izzy and Monty, and they are at opposite ends of our lands. However, we are lucky that our two desired friends both have Hereditary Rule as their favourite civic. And Kublai.

Not sure about next tech. Maybe engineering? We should have the lock on Liberalism, so it would be nice to take chemistry with it.

 

[sooooo]

Roster reminder:

sooooo
mike p - UP
Qwack - On Deck
pindicator
blid

Mike, let us know if you need a swap/skip.