So, here's the deal. I decided to fire up a Noble level Earth 18 Civs game. Because I'm a freakin' masochist, I decided to play as the British.
It is now 1828, and Brittania decidedly does NOT rule the waves. However, the Tudor line has backed it's claim to the French throne with force (translation: I captured Paris).
Paris is the Holy City for Hinduism, and already has the holy city mini-wonder, so financially things are looking up. My three main cities (London, York -- north of London on the map, and a third city on the eastern coast of Ireland) are pretty good at popping out great people and giving me specialists, as well as a nice bit of commerce, thanks to all the sea tiles and Lizzie's Financial tendencies.
I'm in the middle of the pack points-wise right now, and I don't have all that many cities.
However, I have recently outfitted myself with a not-so-thin red line. That's right, the Redcoats are comin' to town. (Louis already met them. They didn't get along too well, but too bad for him.)
I'm about to take Isabella out of the picture, which will give me control of a good chunk of Western Europe, and some nice juicy resources.
Now, here's my dilemma. I'm obviously not going to win via conquest. The timeframe for Redcoat dominance just isn't long enough, although there are a few civs that are still using medieval military units (Spain, America, parts of the Aztec empire, the Incans, I think).
I have the option at this point to dramatically expand my empire, at least given some time to build up the army and such. Like I said, I've got a massive stack of Redcoats backed by some Grenadiers. These are largely promoted medieval units, so they have promotions like Cover, Shock, and the vaunted City raider (no CR3s, though, sadly). I just discovered Steel, too, so my Accuracy I cats are going to be upgraded (I have four of those). I can also build Frigates to pound defenses from off-shore for coastal attacks.
Thing is, I've got maybe one good city-busting stack total, and not all that many troops to garrison said cities once they're busted (assuming I'm not simply razing them, and am more interested in capturing them).
Obviously Isabella is going to be taken out, but that's because she has Madrid and one other city on the western coast of Africa. The African city will be razed since I'd rather not deal with the maintenance problems. Madrid will be captured, as I indicated. But beyond that, I'm not sure how to proceed.
America seems ripe for the picking, but they have a lot of low-to-mid-pop cities spread out along where the Northeast United States would be and most of Canada. Plus, I'd get the oh-so-cheerful Monty as a neighbor. Blech. Monty also has gunpowder at this point and has begun converting his troops to Musketmen. Huyna I'm not sure about. I wouldn't be surprised if he had gunpowder at this point, though. Alex has, I think, managed to capture a barbarian city in South America, and there's a few others left to be captured, as well.
So, there's plenty of oppurtunity for land grabbing, but I'd need to SERIOUSLY devote my attention to building armies AND the ships needed to ferry them across the pond.
My rough plan at the moment is as follows:
1.) Take out Izzie. Should be doable in, say, four to five turns. Let Madrid get back up and running (which'll be another ten turns).
2 -- Option A.) Sail over to "The New World" and take out Roosevelt. Should be relatively easy. Pros: major new resources and land. Cons: New cities to manage and maintain. Would have Monty as a neighbor.
2 -- Option B.) Sail to the new world and keep Roosevelt as my buddy for now. Use open borders with Roosevelt to essentially bust EVERY city that Monty has and burn 'em all to the ground. Pros: No more Monty. No need to maintain his cities. Cons: Loss of some decent cities that, with time, could be nurtured back to health. Also gives Huyna and Roosevelt extra land to grab. Might also invite some of my Continental neighbors to begin settling there.
2 -- Option C.) Similar to Option B, but instead of busting ALL Monty's cities, I bust the interior ones, and keep the coastal ones, then close my borders to anyone who'd otherwise be crossing over and grabbing land. Pros: Takes control of North and Central America. Cons: requires me to spend the time building sufficient defensive units to withstand Monty's counter-attacks. Loss of trade revenues for closed borders.
2 -- Option D.) Sail to the new world, but take over a few barbarian cities. Use these as a base of operations to begin conquering from the south. Pros: Could keep Huyna as a friend while eliminating Monty. Would be easier to defend against Monty when I'm working up from the south. Cons: Have to maintain crappy cities as my base.
3.) Stabilize my new territory and/or begin expanding into it even further. Pros: Gives me a LOT more land and resources. Cons: maintenance costs, and the costs of growing culture sufficiently to lock up the continent and keep guys like the Chinese out. Also this would all take a good long while. Probably into the 1900s, which would mean my science and building would suffer.
Now, alternatively, I could just take out Izzy, put ALL of my efforts into research, and attempt to go for the space victory. But frankly, the space victory really bores me. I'm not 100% sure how to handle a diplomatic victory, but I could try for that too. Conquest is out. Domination I think is out as well. Culture MIGHT be possible, but I really haven't been popping enough GAs to culture bomb effectively.
So, what do you folks think? Given that I'm in the middle of the pack, lack a lot of cities, but have a small core of about four to five strong cities (soon to be six), CAN I actually manage the win here? Is it worth the effort to try to take control of the New World?
It is now 1828, and Brittania decidedly does NOT rule the waves. However, the Tudor line has backed it's claim to the French throne with force (translation: I captured Paris).
Paris is the Holy City for Hinduism, and already has the holy city mini-wonder, so financially things are looking up. My three main cities (London, York -- north of London on the map, and a third city on the eastern coast of Ireland) are pretty good at popping out great people and giving me specialists, as well as a nice bit of commerce, thanks to all the sea tiles and Lizzie's Financial tendencies.
I'm in the middle of the pack points-wise right now, and I don't have all that many cities.
However, I have recently outfitted myself with a not-so-thin red line. That's right, the Redcoats are comin' to town. (Louis already met them. They didn't get along too well, but too bad for him.)
I'm about to take Isabella out of the picture, which will give me control of a good chunk of Western Europe, and some nice juicy resources.
Now, here's my dilemma. I'm obviously not going to win via conquest. The timeframe for Redcoat dominance just isn't long enough, although there are a few civs that are still using medieval military units (Spain, America, parts of the Aztec empire, the Incans, I think).
I have the option at this point to dramatically expand my empire, at least given some time to build up the army and such. Like I said, I've got a massive stack of Redcoats backed by some Grenadiers. These are largely promoted medieval units, so they have promotions like Cover, Shock, and the vaunted City raider (no CR3s, though, sadly). I just discovered Steel, too, so my Accuracy I cats are going to be upgraded (I have four of those). I can also build Frigates to pound defenses from off-shore for coastal attacks.
Thing is, I've got maybe one good city-busting stack total, and not all that many troops to garrison said cities once they're busted (assuming I'm not simply razing them, and am more interested in capturing them).
Obviously Isabella is going to be taken out, but that's because she has Madrid and one other city on the western coast of Africa. The African city will be razed since I'd rather not deal with the maintenance problems. Madrid will be captured, as I indicated. But beyond that, I'm not sure how to proceed.
America seems ripe for the picking, but they have a lot of low-to-mid-pop cities spread out along where the Northeast United States would be and most of Canada. Plus, I'd get the oh-so-cheerful Monty as a neighbor. Blech. Monty also has gunpowder at this point and has begun converting his troops to Musketmen. Huyna I'm not sure about. I wouldn't be surprised if he had gunpowder at this point, though. Alex has, I think, managed to capture a barbarian city in South America, and there's a few others left to be captured, as well.
So, there's plenty of oppurtunity for land grabbing, but I'd need to SERIOUSLY devote my attention to building armies AND the ships needed to ferry them across the pond.
My rough plan at the moment is as follows:
1.) Take out Izzie. Should be doable in, say, four to five turns. Let Madrid get back up and running (which'll be another ten turns).
2 -- Option A.) Sail over to "The New World" and take out Roosevelt. Should be relatively easy. Pros: major new resources and land. Cons: New cities to manage and maintain. Would have Monty as a neighbor.
2 -- Option B.) Sail to the new world and keep Roosevelt as my buddy for now. Use open borders with Roosevelt to essentially bust EVERY city that Monty has and burn 'em all to the ground. Pros: No more Monty. No need to maintain his cities. Cons: Loss of some decent cities that, with time, could be nurtured back to health. Also gives Huyna and Roosevelt extra land to grab. Might also invite some of my Continental neighbors to begin settling there.
2 -- Option C.) Similar to Option B, but instead of busting ALL Monty's cities, I bust the interior ones, and keep the coastal ones, then close my borders to anyone who'd otherwise be crossing over and grabbing land. Pros: Takes control of North and Central America. Cons: requires me to spend the time building sufficient defensive units to withstand Monty's counter-attacks. Loss of trade revenues for closed borders.
2 -- Option D.) Sail to the new world, but take over a few barbarian cities. Use these as a base of operations to begin conquering from the south. Pros: Could keep Huyna as a friend while eliminating Monty. Would be easier to defend against Monty when I'm working up from the south. Cons: Have to maintain crappy cities as my base.
3.) Stabilize my new territory and/or begin expanding into it even further. Pros: Gives me a LOT more land and resources. Cons: maintenance costs, and the costs of growing culture sufficiently to lock up the continent and keep guys like the Chinese out. Also this would all take a good long while. Probably into the 1900s, which would mean my science and building would suffer.
Now, alternatively, I could just take out Izzy, put ALL of my efforts into research, and attempt to go for the space victory. But frankly, the space victory really bores me. I'm not 100% sure how to handle a diplomatic victory, but I could try for that too. Conquest is out. Domination I think is out as well. Culture MIGHT be possible, but I really haven't been popping enough GAs to culture bomb effectively.
So, what do you folks think? Given that I'm in the middle of the pack, lack a lot of cities, but have a small core of about four to five strong cities (soon to be six), CAN I actually manage the win here? Is it worth the effort to try to take control of the New World?
