S-05 Beat the Clock

[Swiss Pauli]

Been busy recently - got engaged yesterday

Congratulations! One could say that you 'beat the clock' by getting engaged yesterday as opposed to today...

 

[Sweetacshon]

Congrats, Swiss!!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/85909/Beat_The_Clock_AD-1460.CivWarlordsSave

The battle continues. We own Birka, and I razed... umm.. 3 others. Who cares what they used to be called. Ragnar has 3 cities left on his mainland, and 1 on a southern island, where we can probably leave him exiled. He got a settler out and resetttled one of his old sites, and I could've razed it first go, but why not let it grow to 2 and steal it.. it is in a pretty good posi for a production city. I thought that speed was of the essence, so I went pretty hard, and unfortunately we lost a couple of highly promoted axes , a cav, and a couple of trebs. Ragnar had the knack of upgrading to grenade just before I attacked, so what can you do? Wait til he runs out of money, that's what. I split the troops to take out the southern city, so once they regroup, he should be a memory next TS.

Spoiler :

There were also some amphibious landings, but they were easily dealt with, and some were even settlers. Even so, we may want some frigates/ ironclads out there.

I sent a small stack down to Salad and started bombing, but we might have to wait for a few reinforcements there. We can trade MT to Izzy for war with Salad and 40g, and with Roos for Constitution. Replacable Parts will offer a little as well, but we'd have to pay cash as well, which probably isn't great. It looks like Vic has MT, so we may as well. We have to go to war with her in 7 turns, so perhaps it'll distract her.. then again, it gives her cavalry. I sent a cav down to scout her out.. should've done this earlier. Check out her power!!

Spoiler :

Vic sent Dvorak to Warwick, so I break out Miles Davis, who was born a few turns earlier, to Hippo. Two can play at that game!!

Spoiler :

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Congrats, Swiss!!

It's sooooo you should congratulate, but I'll take a compliment whenever I can get one

I sent a small stack down to Salad and started bombing, but we might have to wait for a few reinforcements there. We can trade MT to Izzy for war with Salad and 40g, and with Roos for Constitution. Replacable Parts will offer a little as well, but we'd have to pay cash as well, which probably isn't great. It looks like Vic has MT, so we may as well. We have to go to war with her in 7 turns, so perhaps it'll distract her.. then again, it gives her cavalry. I sent a cav down to scout her out.. should've done this earlier. Check out her power!!

As Izzy is our next victim, I think it would be a good idea to bribe someone to DoW her now, whilst we concentrate on Sal and polishing off Raggy. And I wouldn't want to give her MT, anyway.

 

[stuge]

Okay, I guess I'm up. Should I try to implement drafting?

 

[Swiss Pauli]

I think you need to look at the save and go with your instinct on drafting: WW was bad in my turns and I whipped some away, but it'll only get worse and it prevents us growing our pop for a mass-draft.

I think we could reach a critical overstretch on the war front with the Spanish declaration, especially if her power scares off the other AIs from attacking her. That's no slight on our play, but more a reflection of the difficulty of the challenge.

 

[sooooo]

Yep, drafting. In cities with barracks, drafting is only 1 extra unhapiness, or no extra unhapiness if you count the lost population as reducing "we are crowded" penalty. Most cities should be drafted from every 15 turns except large ones with good production like Carthage. Did we start globe theatre Sweetacshon? If not, where should we start it? It is of very high priority.

In my opinion, we should build (whip) a galleon to finish off Ragnar as soon as possible to reduce WW.

Izzy's power is high, but nothing we cannot handle.

 

[stuge]

Utica has nothing but food so perhaps the globe should go there.

I have a very busy day tomorrow so I'll reflect on the strategy and play saturday.

 

[Sweetacshon]

It's sooooo you should congratulate, but I'll take a compliment whenever I can get one

Bahaha.... tricked by the quote. Congrats, Sooooo, and go to hell, Swiss

I just could not get anybody to declare war, except for Izzy, of course. The GT was not started, but I suppose Utica is the place.. we could even use it as a drafting station instead of a GPfarm.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Bummer about the chicken AIs not being willing to attack Izzy. Maybe they'll join in once we're start to beat on her...

Globe in Utica seems the best choice, but it won't be a quick build.

 

[stuge]

The endless war

Ragnar got stomped for good. His remaining mainland cities fell quickly and the veterans of the campaign are being redeployed to the Arabian front. Ragnar got left with one island city, but instead of chasing him personally, I bribed Vicky to DOW him for replacable parts and some gold. She's got galleons, so hopefully she'll finish our job.

The war in Arabia went slowly. Muscat was taken and turned into a Carthagnian fortress. There I gathered a stack over several turns. The stack is now next to Damascus, while a second one is being assembled. There's a minor pothole in the road to Mecca, however.



Yes, that's a rifle in Damascus. A CG 3/drill 1 one, if I may add. I'm afraid that we'll have to pull back and upgrade our maces to grenadiers to take any more cities.

In 1502 AD the clock struck for Izzy. First I extorted 100 gold from her and then proceeded to raze one of her worthless iceball cities. Otherwise nothing remarkable happened in that front.

Economy and non-violent foreign affairs

If my last turnset was characterized by whipping cavalry, then this one was the round of draft. I waited for some units to finish and then switched to nationhood and began drafting in our backline cities. The power graph for the last 50 turns speaks volumes.



One can almost pinpoint the turn when Saladin researched rifling.

Near the end of the set I traded MT to Roosevelt for constitution, his world map and some gold. Jails will help with the war weariness and Swiss should determine whether switching to representation is a good idea.

I understand that we were supposed to trigger a culture bomb in Hippo. Unfortunately Vicky had a GA too.



It's now a tie.

Steel will be done in six turns. After that we should head towards communism
and state propertty to save our sorry economy.

I didn't get to start the Globe in Utica because we were short on theatres. Swiss should be able to get it underway. Oh, and Swiss, I cancelled most of my nasty go to-orders but be prepared for many rifles marching from the north towards carthage. Also, I added raze/keep-signs to Izzy's cities. Constructive criticism is welcome.

Keep on rocking.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Got it, but Stuge's linky is slightly broken...the save is here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90346/Beat_The_Clock_AD-1520.CivWarlordsSave

My idea would be to trade Vicky Rifling for Economics and 820g and use this cash to upgrade our CR Maces to Grenadiers (we have two in Muscat and and one or two more nearby). Cavs get diverted to Spain cos Izzy doesn't have Replaceable Parts yet. Keep on researching to Steel then shut off research for a few turns to get some killer trebs and cats upgraded to Cannons.

I agree with the keep/raze signs in Spain. It would be handy for us if Izzy builds the Temple of Solomon before we take Barca. Not sure about a civics change, but it might be worth making a shift to REP and Free Market for happy and to restore Great Lighthouse income.

 

[sooooo]

Hands off Swiss, you're on deck!

Swiss Pauli - On Deck
Sweetacshon
Immaculate
stuge
sooooo - UP

 

[Swiss Pauli]

I just realised that a few moments ago...thought it had come around too fast!

 

[Sweetacshon]

I don't think we should've razed Ragnar's NE city, and really, maybe we should fill that gap before the Americans do. On that note, maybe keep Salad's Khurasan. I am in agreeance with the Izzy plan.

The trade for Viccy's declaration was too steep, imho. What do we care if Ragnar is exiled to a crappy island? The variation just says to declare at certain clock times, not to wipe them out. This should maybe apply to Salad as well, who has a few islands. Actually, it will probably reduce WW, so maybe we should wipe them out, but it still seems too expensive.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

The trade for Viccy's declaration was too steep, imho. What do we care if Ragnar is exiled to a crappy island? [...] Actually, it will probably reduce WW, so maybe we should wipe them out, but it still seems too expensive.

I too think the price may have been too high, because there's no guarantee Vicky will do the business, but I can understand Stuge's reasoning: not only do we have bad WW, but Nidaros, for example, has 6 Motherland and we have no safe way of getting to Lodsoe for ages.

 

[stuge]

Yeah, it was pretty much an arm and a leg, but since almost everybody else already had r.parts, I figured that it would be the best shot we'd have at getting rid of those angry faces for a long time. Besides, I saw Vicky's frigate heading east on my last turn, so not all hope is lost.

 

[sooooo]

Whoever traded for constitution - . Jails saved us here - some cities were up to +16 war weariness. Played 10 turns.

On the inherited turn, lots of MM, drafting from 3 cities, whipping etc.

On turn one I killed a salad stack, hopefully the last of his mobile troops:



Next turn raze Jaen:



We get a GG, our own daddy Hamilcar Barca! He is merged into Neapolis.

Izzy now appears with an offensive stack:



Who cares if our drafted rifles arrive unpromoted when you get free upgrades like that?

On the same turn I razed Damascus:



It had a keep sign, but would have used up too much resources to defend and would have starved to size 1 anyway. I wanted to wheel right and didn't want to defend the city.

Now we raze Santiago. It also had a keep sign, but I would urge players not to follow these signs rigidly. When the opponent's power is dropping rapidly (eg Saladin), we can keep cities. But while she still has offensive troops we should raze most of them.



Steel comes in, start Steam Power because the other options (astro, democracy, economics) are already known. No one knows Steam Power yet so should be tradable. Trade Steel to Roosevelt for Sci Meth, unfortunately Vicky already knows Steel.



Capture Kufah, the Taoist holy city. The good news is that it has the Taoist shrine! The bad news is that it is generating +2 GPT. Hopefully the buddhist shrine will be better.



Found a city on the ruins of a city we shouldn't have razed. Cities which have lots of cottages can usually pay for themselves.

Militarity, the Arabian stack is OK but could use some more grenadiers. Izzy does not have rifling or MT yet (though does have chemistry), so our troops are faring better over there. We have plenty of rifles but lack siege weapons on the spanish front. Main builds should be cannon for a while. When draft weariness wears off, draft again! The Save

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Got it for tonight.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

I'll give a fairly quick summary of the turnset, then move to the military handover.

- Lots of jails whipped and we're even growing back some pop in our core cities;
- Leptis founded in ex-Viking and we now have Spices, Dyes and Stone (but it doesn't have a garrison);
- Cannons produced, but no drafting;
- Two of Izzy's northern cities razed, but I've put a note to leave Asturias: it's so poor that keeping will hurt Izzy more than losing it;
- Made a cashpile to invest in Steam, but had to spend some on emergency upgrades. We're now chugging through it at 50% research;
- Oxford just started in Rome now we have Stone;
- Globe is still a fair way off in Utica: maybe a max overflow whip could be used, but I find them a bit dubious;
- We lost three rifles and a caravel. The latter being sunk by a lucky shot from Izzy just after I upgraded our Trireme at Carthage.

After seeing this attack in the inter-turn, I think we should push on to Mecca at full speed:



That's the only one so far, but I think we should cut of Sal's head, as it were, for he's surely getting most of his fuel from his capital.

Here's the situation:



I didn't change the sign, but I think we should raze it and march ASAP on Mecca. We have some more cavs in Sal's area, but they're hanging back to cover counters as they're not too useful for city attacks.

In Spain, it's a lot more rosy:



The two cannon highlighted are in Newcastle. And no, there a no units 'under' the Spanish WE and Musket. I don't think Izzy built ToS in my turnset, but I did forget to check it.

Lastly, we're at 3 years per turn, so we've a good amount of turns to go until 1750 when we must declare on Victoria.

 

[Sweetacshon]

I'm amused by that barb archer stuck on that little peninsular in the last pic.

All's going well, it seems. I'm not so keen to raze Basra.... if it is really an issue, just take Mecca first, as Basra has minimal hammer value.