S-04 HC's worst nightmare

[sooooo]

I played 10 turns this round.

On the inherited turn I begged 350 gold from Louis, and whipped Maccu Picchu (lighthouse), Salamanca (theatre) and Tlat (market). We have a few workers building things we don't need while 2 former aztec cities are not connected, so they stop what they are doing ready to build some roads.

Press enter and ...



Fair enough. She soaks up the declaring on friend modifiers for us.

Her initial stack is just 1 mace, 1 xbow and 1 cat. Our grenadiers are heading north (or south?).

In other news we are Kublai's worst enemy. That can't be good. Whip granary in Tlax, courthouse in Tex.

It's hard to defend novgorod because it's all hills from spain to the city, so you have bad odds when attacking the invaders. Izzy is content to "use" her stack by bombarding Nov with her 1 catapult every turn.

Izzy has sent 2 more stacks. One just has an xbow and a mace, the other has 2 xbows, a mace, a LBM and a cat. But our grenadiers arrive and claim the high ground:



Eventually we kill all the stacks off, losing a cat and a grenadier in the process. But I can't stop her pillaging our wheat and sugar.

Hatty asks politely for gunpowder. I think about this for about the time it takes me to brew a cup of tea. Now where's that drinking tea smiley? Eventually I let her have it.

I ambush this nice settler group in the south (or north?):



Kill some more troops, and raze two cities:





I think we've dealt with Izzy's mobile troops now, it's time to go on and claim Madrid, Barcelona etc. I traded for Hatty's world map so we can see every city.

We got an artist against the odds in Tlat. I was hoping for an engineer (greatest odds) for the Taj. He is heading north, not sure what to do with him. I spread hinduism to Nov, and another missionary is en-route to Cuzco. Tiwanaku has lost the gold, and is getting pretty cramped. Possibly we should merge the artist here.

On the last turn Liberalism was no longer a monopoly so I traded it to Louis for guilds.



This was actually our first trade with Louis, so the +ve modifiers from this trade in his favour put him up to friendly. Next turn we may be able to trade for banking from someone. Steel due in 2. Some cities started pre-building cannons by starting catapults.

sooooo - Just Played
mike p - UP
Qwack - on deck
pindicator
blid

 

[mike p]

OK. I goofed and played one extra turn, but everything is going all right.

On the research front, we finished Steel and Banking. I didn't make any trades. We're a couple of turns into Printing Press, but that was only because it would help our further research without having to build new buildings - I don't feel like we have to stay married to it if there's something more tempting you see.

The only place I whipped was in Macchu Picchu because it was unhappy and could really use a forge, this will also let us get our workboat out a lot quicker since we've taken control of the whale tile.

The war with Spain is going pretty well. I took Toledo and Barcelona. We have a stack just outside of Murcia, and one just outside of the Jewish holy city. The Forbidden Palace just finished in St Pete's. There are some units there that should be sufficient to take out Santiago, since we have cannon and grenadiers, and they longbows. If we're going to keep it, we might want to settle the artist there to push back the French borders.

France was willing to pile on Isabella for 720 gold, but I figured we're better off alone on this one. Isabella should be gone in another 10 turns or so. No pressure guys!

I spent a lot of our money upgrading cats and maces to cannon and grenadiers.

I also made a trade with Vicky - we're getting 9 gpt for bananas.

No one seems to "have enough on our hands right now" which is good!

That's about it.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/56599/HC_s_worst_nightmare_AD-1523.Civ4SavedGame

All yours, Qwack.

 

[blid]

Good job with the spanish campaign Mike. Hope, Isabella built the jewish shrine for us.
Qwack, have you solved your computer problems with CIV ? You can't miss epic 9 now, can you ?

 

[sooooo]

Looking back at earlier posts, the forum doesn't recognise Qwack as a member any more. Or our silent advisor Asperger. But the forum has been acting weird today.

 

[sooooo]

OK, skip Qwack again.

Pindicator is up now with blid on deck.

sooooo
mike p
Qwack
pindicator - UP
blid - On Deck

 

[Qwack]

Im here now and I got it. Sorry for that...

 

[pindicator]

take it away Qwack!

 

[sooooo]

Good to have you back Qwack . Let's get that spanish capital. Printing Press sounds as good a tech as any.

 

[Qwack]

Turns complete.

Looks like mike P has left some nice stacks near Isabella's cities. With her defending with longbows and us attacking with grenadiars, this war is really no contest. Isabella went down like a fly during my turnset. Murcia was captured in 1523



I checked some trade options. Loius will give us horse and 4 GPT or 10 GPT for one of our furs, I decided not to pull off this deal though and let the next player decide. In other news, Isabella is seriously getting beaten up. Even the barbs are going aftewr her in 1526 AD



Seville captured in 1529. What really suprised me here though was that jewish holy with with 23% world following does not have the shrine. Ugh..



I started thinking about our victory conditions. Loius and hatty are both friendly and will probably vote for us in elections, but the problem is currenty hatty is set to be our opponent. If we can somehow make Kublai our opponent (Gifting cities?), we can probably easily win diplo victory. Space race will take the longest amount of time, and domination with this map and its increased maintenance will be annoying. Im personally leaning towards space race or diplo.

Anyways, Santiago captured in 1535.



Some of our old mexican cities had 0 culture and had good tiles in thier second ring, so I whipped theatres in them. I also have some workers heading into newly captured spanish cities to improve some food resources since alot of our cities are starving. Great Scientist was born in Teotihucan but I decided not to burn on Printing Press. We have an artist idling so golden age is a possibility, or just hold him off until a better tech is available. If we go golden age, I would wait until our captured spanish cities are out of revolt first.

One thing I think we should watch out for is Kublai. His army is huge and we are his worst enemy, which might turn into trouble on this map if we get caught in a bad position. I suggest signing a defensive pact with hatty or Loius as soon as its available.

Save:

 

[mike p]

So what's left of Spain, just Madrid?

Will the Great Artist be needed to push out our borders at Santiago?

I took a fairly deliberate pace with the armies this time around, unlike my mad dash into the heart of Azteca, I'm glad you found the stacks to your liking, I didn't want to over stretch since Spain would fall easily with a nice moderate pacing.

On the one hand, I don't particularly like Diplo victories because I feel like they're kind of arbitrary. But any win on Immortal, with our old punching bag HC is good by me. Though gifting a lot of cities to Khan would seem kind of gamey.

 

[pindicator]

I agree on gifting cities ... what about good old Domination? We can aim for Khan and then if we need to stab Louis in the back (the guy did declare on us way-back-when, remember?) and that should be enough. Hatty can be our bestest buddy for all time.

I'll grab the save, but I won't be able to play until Sunday, so someone else can jump in if they like.

 

[blid]

What about Vicky ? IMO, Vicky must die whatever condition win we're aiming for
Financial trait in the hand of a backstabber, she could only deserve
Isn't playing space race too risky with Kublai hanging around ? A defensive pact may do the trick like Qwack pointed out but can we keep it till the end ? Even after dropping hereditary rule ?

I'm for a golden age but if you want to burn the scientist then printing press is as good a tech as any. Its benefit is immediate so the sooner the better. Better techs would be more expensive and the scientist can't complete even printing press on his own

I can't play before sunday too so I'd rather wait for pindicator to play his turns

 

[Qwack]

The reason I didnt burn GS on printing press was wastage of ~400 beakers. Golden age once our spanish cities are up and running will be quite useful, although like you mentioned the tradeoff is that the benefit fromt he GA isnt immediete.

What about Vicky ? IMO, Vicky must die whatever condition win we're aiming for
Financial trait in the hand of a backstabber, she could only deserve
Isn't playing space race too risky with Kublai hanging around ? A defensive pact may do the trick like Qwack pointed out but can we keep it till the end ? Even after dropping hereditary rule ?

I think we can keep a defensive pact with Hatty until the end, Loius we probably cant though, since we will eventually lose the herditary rule and religious bonuses with him. All victory conditions right now look like they have downsides. Domination on this map with toriodal is going to be painful, and as some people mentioned, gifting cities to win a diplomatic is somewhat gamey.

 

[sooooo]

I say we play it by ear. We still have to finish off Isabella, and will need some rest time after that too. The way this SG is proceeding, someone else will declare on us and we will have to fight them too . Let's reinforce the mongol border - I know I was guilty of leaving it undefended.

 

[pindicator]

A pretty quiet turnset, considering we're at war. A couple of towns came out of resistance and the starving ones had buildlings whipped. We captured Madrid, and out troops are ready to take the last two spanish towns next turn. Which is good, because WW is a pain. The slider is at 10% to help with that.

We have a new neighbor.

Hatty, chair of our local "Welcome to the Neighborhood" committee, has headed a greeting party. If I had to put a city anywhere in the area, I'd do it on the ice tile one east of the current barb town.

Louis made me choose between him and Vicky. As if there was much of a choice to be made. So I canceled deals with Vicky per Louis' request. I may have given us our next war; we'll just have to see.

Printing Press came in, and now we are researching Replaceable Parts.

 

[blid]

got it. I think I'll have to use the full 48 hours.
Would finish Isabella and see how things are going. Probably someone would declare on us like you all seem to think.

 

[blid]

Pindicator prepared things well for me to finish off spain
I had an incredible luck with a cat beating a longbow at 0.4% odds. Just after, I lost a cannon at 95% odds. You know, the RNG was mad at letting me get away with such an incredible luck

Anyway, I took Cordoba with a lost of that cannon and another cat.

Last city is Pamplona, I kept it for the pigs and dyes. We should be able to avoid flip from Paris culture

Louis gave me 280 gold. This guy is not friendly so often, better take profit now. I push slider to 90%. Don't want another AI to come asking for that gold

I had a french revolt in Santiago even though it had three units. That city could well be lost to the french

Hatty came asking for printing press in couterpart of divine right. She must have lost her head.

See, I got there just before Egypt and razed that city.

The turn before I had started a settler in a nearby city so I whip it this turn to go claim the ice tile. Well, at least if the AI don't send a settler from nowhere. I am tired of AI settling in the middle of our borders.

Hatty did try to steal the spot but she was late

Louis has enough on his hands. I think he is going for Vicky. I would position some troops on her borders I think, and wait for his call of help

Oh, we had a new scientist. I'm keeping him for the moment. He would help with scientific method, when we need it.

Louis declared on Vicky like expected. I'm nearly ready for the war but what are all those cats doing next to our border ?

Was she planning to attack us ? Louis took her by surprise. Oh, by the way, we have horses

Once replacable parts were in, I chose steam power but put the slider at 0%. It's either that or scientific method methinks. Rifilng is way too liked by the AI and they would research it very soon

Speaking about techs, Hatty had printing press and Louis was researching it so I sold it to him for his money, HBR and a world map.

Hatty got replacable parts soon after that. She's starting researching damn fast. I launched the golden age once Cordoba got out of revolt.

Louis managed to take that city full of catapults I showed above. He still didn't invite us for war but we're ready to go. If he waits too much, we should go by ourselves. Kublai still don't have anything on his hands so we are safe on that side

 

[mike p]

sooooo is up, but where's the save?

We're going to need to eat up a big chunk of England, methinks. Hatty is only slightly behind us in score, so with the AI bonuses she should be big enough to easily out research us. Will declaring on Vicky make Hatty unhappy?

 

[blid]

arghhh, forgot to post the save
Would do once I get back home

I believe Hatty would be friends with nearly everybody but I haven't actually checked

EDIT : save

 

[sooooo]

Got it, should have time to play Thursday evening.