sc:01 Moddern war

[S.ilver]

Got it. Looks like we're sizing up the opposition, although we're a ways away from Modern War.

Looks like the opposition has been busy with missionaries, at least on the nearby continent.

I can't believe we're still ahead in score, and very much alive in the tech race. Must be from the sheer volume of land (and at 40% research too ).

Only Darius has DR, and he built Versailles in Saxon (you can tell by the silver star). Although we probably still can't make a realistic run at the Minaret.

HRE is second last in score and has two techs we want (Calendar and Engineering). Looks like he'll trade those, plus the rest of his gold, for Lit, Drama, Theo, and Civil. Not really fair for us, but would get us those techs without further waste of time.

Additionally, Babylon will fork over his map, Calendar, and 70 gold, all for paper. But he is 3rd in points and I don't know if we feel like helping him. DeGaulle also wants paper, so Babylon would probably fork it over since they are religious buddies.

Oh, and we could've traded Compass... because it's Optics that gives Caravels, and that will still cost the AI some research.

Will wait for some input, it looks like we're making a run for liberalism? What do we take as the free tech?

 

[playshogi]

I'd take Astronomy as the free tech, for the overseas trade routes. We don't have to go for liberalism immediately, though. Guilds and banking would be nice, but probably we can trade for those. Also, let's move some units (in the north) into our cultural borders and perhaps disband the galleys. We are paying for unit supply which is unnecessary. I suppose McCoy should get the movement bonus for the his next promotion? I'm surprised to see the missionary still on board a caravel. Would've preferred to see him dropped off exploring the 3rd continent or spreading the religion, but this is the part of the game where I lack focus too. I should have moved those northern units southward to take out the barb city. Perhaps pre-chop forests around Thebes on the off chance we can trade for Divine Right with the Spiral Minaret unbuilt?

As far as the scenario theme: modern war, do we leave these AI alone until.... when?

 

[Simon_c]

Astro would be good, yes.
We're about one move away from the circumnavigation bonus, then we can sell our map.

Sorry about leaving the gallies out side cultural borders. I tend to forget about unit supply until I'm at 0gold

Personally, I like to keep hold of paper as it's a prereq for liberalism, but if it's a good deal, then it's probably worth it. Then we can tech up to 1 turn away from liberalism, and keep a close eye on the others to see when they nolonger want education. This is to try to get max value form the free tech. Probably not always the best plan, but in this case as we're gearing up for late war, it could be.

I left the missionary on the carvel as I wasn't sure where was best to offload him and convert yet. Probably should have got shot of him sooner though, yes.

As for when we go to war, I'd say Industrialization and combustion units. So a while off yet. We probably need SciMethod sooner rather than later though to make sure we have Oil, otherwise we'll need to get to Plastics for Oil for aircraft. (but we can make do with nuclear powered boats).

So, if no oil, then we'd probably want to take Physics for the GS before getting plastics. But that's a long way off.

Short term goals I guess is to get the 6 universities for Oxford and get banking to start the 6 banks for Wall St.

Anyone any comments on the city specializations ? Focusing on what each city does isn't my strong point.

And remember, Helio is still building wealth.


Now we know everyone, our EPs are spread very thin. We probably need to focus one or two cities on EP production with spies and EP buildings.

BTW, I'm happy to cut down on the detail in reports (if people want to) until we get closer to the modern age, but I do want some discussion on city specialization, tech plans etc.

 

[Madtown]

Anyone any comments on the city specializations ? Focusing on what each city does isn't my strong point.

I have some thoughts, but no time to check the save until later today.

 

[S.ilver]

1350AD (290):

Preflight check. I'm not sure why we're building more units in some of our cities, as we are way over free upkeep. We also don't need so many units since we're not going to war for a while anyways... I dial up a university in Thebes, and an Aqueduct in Elephantine. Amsterdam also gets a university, and I look in it's GPP pool. One due in 2 turns, and it's likely to be a prophet, although the pool is contaminated by anything and everything.

I'm also not a fan of the whip, and since I won't be using it at all during my turn, I use our spiritual trait to revolt to Serfdom, saving us 5 gold, and perhaps helping build improvements faster (although we are fairly saturated with workers).

I also dial up Charlie and do the following trade.

Spoiler :

I hope this isn't too much , but my reasoning is Charlie is Christian, and pretty far behind his counterparts Izzy and Liz. I also don't want to manually research that stuff if everyone else has it.

1355AD (291):

Ok, scratch what I said about Amsterdam. It was one turn too slow. We get a GE in Memphis. This would be awesome if we had DR and could rush the Minaret, but Darius "don't want to start trading away this technology just yet" which means he's building it I assume. I will skip him every turn until we get a wonder we want, just so that we don't forget he's there. As well, I moved NOTHING and we got the circumnavigation bonus this turn. I think we get it because of having 1 tile from each longitude. Therefore it is safe to trade our map now. Let's see what we can get for it.

Ok, it seems our world map is fairly worthless to the AI, no one wants it.

Monastery in Sparta, for the obvious extra beakers and hammers. University in Memphis.

Units moved back into borders to cut down on costs. Notice that there is no actual road connecting Thebes to Giza, making all the marching troops have to wade across the river O.o

Simon listed Giza as a production city, but someone built a windmill, farms, and cottages, so not sure what to make of it. I too like the riverside ironworks idea, so I'm going to work on mining and preserving forests. However, our lack of roads is starting to slow the workers down, so going to lay down a few more as I go (not excessive though).

1360AD (292):

Memphis celebrates we love the prime minister day. Yay!

Persians got a Great Prophet, and the French got the gladiator random event.

Found Monty's homeland, and it looks like he founded Buddhism (lol!), but got it taken away from him.

Spoiler :

1365AD (293):

Memphis celebrates we love the prime minister day. Again! They must really love us in Memphis.

Spoiler :

Hmm... the log shows it as happening in the previous years. I guess that makes sense from an upkeep paying perspective.

1370AD (294):

Phil done this turn. We can build (and rush) Angkor Wat, but it seems like a waste, so I won't consider it. Set tech to Liberalism in 9.

Missionary unloaded into De Gaulle land, where he will take a look around.

1375AD (295):

Islam spreads in York. LMAO. Liz is spreading our religion for us. Thanks Liz!

Athens finishes its library and will grow in 4 turns to the happy cap, so I dial up a forge since we have extra health. Probably follow up with a market before looking at the university.

1380AD (296):

Damnit. I wasn't watching and Elephantine completed its build and finished the crossbowman last turn >.<. Dial up a University, although note that Angkor Wat only takes Elephantine 13 turns to do by itself.

I wake up and realize I traded for Calendar on the first turn, so pull workers to construct a plantation for an extra happy.

1385AD (297):

Izzy really likes spreading Islam for us. Now it's in Nottingham. If she saturates her cities, ask her to convert!

Sparta finished its Monastery, so dial up a university because all the free specs make us nice beakers. Giza's granary is done, so go for a monastery.

1390AD (298):

Charlie wants to have open borders with us. He must've been happy with the trade I gave him earlier. Agree.

Islam is in Hastings now. WTH is Liz doing, spamming missionaries? In other news, Liz already has Nationalism and Guilds, but lacks Education which she wants badly. Obviously won't give it to her.

Right, units amassed to take Kushans. Lowest XP cat gets Barrage and goes in. It gets owned, but does damage the top archer, along with the collateral. Next cat has Combat 1 for some odd reason, so I send it in. It dies too, but no big loss, because combat promotions on cats aren't too useful.

Sending in CR3 swords now. They go 2 for 2, and there are only 2 archers left. 2 CR3 Axes go in and go 2 for 2 as well, last one going flawless and burning the town.

Spoiler :

Ok, check back on the plantation workers and they are done, but the city screen says we now have 2 sugars. I was confused, until I realized that Elephantine is BUILT on a sugar . I guess I wasted my time, but the plantation produces one more gold than the farmed sugar, with the same food, so going to replace all sugar farms with plantations, at least until biology.

Byblos Lighthouse is done, so order up a Monastery. Normally I'd do a Granary, but 2 food resources ensures quick growth right now, while we lack hammers.

1395AD (299):

Islam spreads in Canterbury. I swear, what's with Liz???

Alexandria Market done, but it doesn't have a library??? Order one up. Temple done in Pi-Ramesses, so order up a Monastery.

Thebes finished... something... this turn (probably a university), and is back on its crossbow, which we don't need, so I switch it to a settler so we can do some backfilling.

1400AD (300):

Memphis university is done, order up another settler there. Courts in Akhetaten are done, so order up a granary, as this town has some nice mines to work.

Missionary is basically done scouting out De Gaulle land, and we may want to spread Islam in one of his cities before he cuts open borders (he's down to annoyed).

Monty appears to have been pushed into the Arctic by De Gaulle and Hammurabi.

ROSTER
1: Simon_c
2: S.ilver <-- Just Played --
3: Madtown **UP NOW**
4: playshogi <-- On Deck --
5: tiberion02 >>Skip<<

 

[Simon_c]

the main reason I was building troops was so we had at least one crossbowman per city for defence. We probably need to kill off any old troops that are not CR2 or higher.

Some of the new cities, even if they were going to be production, I was going to farm a little first to get the population up quickly.

Lizzy does to a good job of spreading your religions around doesn't she. I think she tends to go for a cultural win. If you look she has about 4 religions in each city. With any luck, we can bribe her to go to islam, and then bribe Spain to give attack. Should keep them busy for a while

I've got a feeling that DeGaul it going to be a problem. He may try to launch an intercontinental invasion if we don't keep a high enough power. Maybe we should plan for a spell in nationalism once we hit industrialisation ? We don't even have to pay the "low price of 1 turn of anarchy"

 

[S.ilver]

lol. That quote is from my first ever Civ 4 SG .

De Gaulle has us beat on the power graph, but we seem to be about even with everyone else. The only reason that I'm not concerned yet is that he can't invade us without Galleons. Even once he gets Astronomy, he has to build those Galleons. So, in my eyes, military is not as pressing as getting our cities well entrenched with infrastructure (which will be critical in supporting the Modern War Machine).

 

[Madtown]

Got it.

Do we want to take Astro from lib right away or try to tech for something better? Since we have a spare GE, we could try for constitution from liberalism, tech democracy, and rush the SoL.

If we do take Astro, what should our research path be after?

 

[playshogi]

I think with a GE in reserve we ought to take a chance on DR right away. Our tech lead is solid and not likely to evaporate with that detour. After, astro, going for SoL seems logical, but be aware of trades for guilds and banking, so we can try to get the free GE from economics. DR would be a good trading chip.

 

[Madtown]

I think with a GE in reserve we ought to take a chance on DR right away. Our tech lead is solid and not likely to evaporate with that detour. After, astro, going for SoL seems logical, but be aware of trades for guilds and banking, so we can try to get the free GE from economics. DR would be a good trading chip.

I'd much rather tech nationalism and use the GE on Tal Mahal. Nationalism will allow us to take constitution from Liberalism. Astro is actually not that expensive for us right now (13 turns).

I've never been a big fan of spiral minaret, because you have to build the religious buildings also to get the bonus, and it's only 1 per anyway.

 

[playshogi]

It's 2 for SM. like a free merchant for the larger cities.

 

[Madtown]

It's 2 for SM. like a free merchant for the larger cities.

Actually, IIRC it is 1 per religious building. So with a monastery and temple you can get +2 , add a cathedral and you get +3 for that city. But, again, you have to figure in the value of the hammers invested into theose religious buildings into the worth of the wonder/boni.

well, I vote to skip DR and go for nationalism, taj mahal, and constitution from lib. But, if the rest of the team wants to pursue DR and the minaret, I will do that.

Simon and S.ilver, cast your vote now.

Edit: will try to play tonight, but no promises. I just got back from a brewery tour and I'm a bit

 

[S.ilver]

I'm really torn on this decision. Yes, the Spiral Minaret is awesome and provides 2 per state religion building, which would give us a MAJOR influx of cash, because we already built lots of state religion buildings to take advantage of the AP, and UoS. It would round out the awesomeness of the religious route, and provide a shot in the arm to raise our research rate.

However, Darius has been sitting on DR for long enough to have completed Versailles two turnsets ago, and he's not willing to trade DR to us even though we're on decent terms. That says to me that he's been working on it. For how long, we don't know, but he finished Versailles 18 turns ago. We'd have to tech DR (which will take us 8 turns), before we can rush the Minaret.

HOWEVER (and this is a big however), a great person is due in Amsterdam NEXT TURN! This great person has a 49% chance of being a Great Prophet (who can give us some progress with DR).

IMO, switch the tech to DR and crank up the research on it. IF we get a Prophet, we can bulb DR, and then rush the Minaret within a few turns. If we DON'T get a Prophet, then I don't think we should risk dumping the beakers into DR, because we will probably not get the Minaret if we have to wait for it (unless we run a deficit, which we can do for a bit, because I saved up some gold).

EDIT: Further thoughts. Darius has no stone in his territory. I think it would be safe to say that he has no stone at all, because his religion differs from those on his continent who have stone, so probably they aren't likely to trade with him. Just checked with the AIs, and Charlie is Annoyed at Darius, and Izzy considers him her worst enemy (also Annoyed). So definitely haven't been trading.

Also, think about this further cheese. I'm not sure if this is how it works, but we can use the missionary on De Gaulle (the strongest AI). If he declares war on us, don't we get an AP option to stop the war? (if he has Islam in one of his cities) If we spread Islam to one city of each AI, and this is true, we can basically stop all wars against us until Mass Media.

EDIT2: Alright, I've thought about this some more, and I'm REALLY liking the Minaret right now. Look at Darius' cities, and add the fact that he doesn't have Stone to speed the Minaret up. He doesn't really have any high production cities (and Saxon doesn't really count, because it looks like he's been working his cottages). I think we can beat him, because even if we DON'T get the Prophet, we can tech DR in 7 turns or so running a deficit, and then buyout the Minaret with the Engineer. This would be a huge boon to us because we've already invested in so many religious buildings. However, if someone more knowledgeable than me knows exactly the kinds of production bonuses the AI gets at Monarch, that would probably give a good indication.

EDIT3: And yes, I realize that, being such a proponent of the Minaret, I probably should've teched DR in my turnset, and rushed the Minaret then. So I guess my turnset is

 

[playshogi]

And yes, I realize that, being such a proponent of the Minaret, I probably should've teched DR in my turnset, and rushed the Minaret then. So I guess my turnset is

Nah, we both could've tried for it and who knew we would get a GE for it? Or, possibly, a GP to rush the tech? Can we bribe anyone to declare war on Darius? Alex didn't stop building wonders while at war, but then he attacked us.

I think SM was improved to 2/building in a Warlords patch.

We should have plenty of time to build the required buildings since to fulfill our scenario mandate we should wait until flight before we send our armadas over. Plus, with the added theme of our state religion it just seems right to get SM.

 

[Madtown]

IHT: I go through the cities to check up on things. Our empire has increased dramatically since the last time I was in power.

Thebes: fire 2 scientists in favor of faster settler production and then growth. City is size 13 with happy and health caps of 18. ..

Amsterdam: fire an engineer for growth. Slot in a Angor Wat and a lighthouse into the build queue after the Uni. We may not get the wonder, but the city doesn&#8217;t have too much left to build and cash is always nice.

Helio: fire 2 scientists in favor of cottages and growth&#8230;

Elephantine: fire an engineer in favor of growth. Uni still finishes in 4 turns.

Navajo: Fire 2 of 3 specialists in favor of growth, set them to the lucrative 2 3 coast tiles.

Alexandria: fire an engineer in favor of a mine. While we are in representation, the city has yet to finish a library so the beaker loss in negligible.

Pi-Ramesses: put in a forge as next build after the monastery.

So, I know we want to make the most of representation powered specialists, but many of our larger cities have room to grow as much as 4-5 pop. Liberalism in 3 turns.

***break***

After the discussion, I decide to go with S.ilver&#8217;s plan and try for both routes. Switch research to DR. Rehire a prophet in Amsterdam to ensure 1 turn until GP.

1405 AD:

Great prophet is born in Amsterdam. I bulb him for 1986 towards DR (2 turns left). Also we're the wealthiest civ!

Open borders with Hammurabi, he is no one&#8217;s worst enemy.

Spread islam to Paris with our scouting missionary.

Delete some units.

1415 AD:

DR finished. For some reason, I and think that the bonus from the minaret works like a shrine, thus I rush the wonder in Thebes, our best commerce city. No real harm done, though Amsterdam or Athens could&#8217;ve used the wonder GPP better.

1420 AD:

finances jump from +33 to +89 You guys are right, it is +2 per building.

Another thing we haven&#8217;t discussed is placement of Oxford University. We now have met the requirements for the wonder so we should decide where to put it. Potential candidates are Thebes, Helio, or Athens, IMO.

research set to Nationalism (7 turns).

Settle Avaris is the icy south.

1425 AD:

Isabella builds Angor Wat.

1430 AD:

Only 14 earned for failed Wat bulld

1445 AD:

AP election results

That&#8217;s the highlights. Nationalism will finish in 1 turn. Then we should switch back to liberalism and take constitution as free tech. Don&#8217;t forget to queue up Taj Mahal in our highest prod city!!! Once that&#8217;s done we can hard research Astro followed by PP --> Democracy. Along the way we should be able to trade for the guilds &#8211;> banking line.

A couple of units are on GOTO. Asettler, garrison, and missionary, also the caravels are on their way home.

Let&#8217;s decide NOW where we want Oxford and National Epic. I vote for the former in Thebes and the latter in Athens.



Roster
1: Simon_c <-- On Deck --
2: S.ilver
3: Madtown <-- Just Played --
4: playshogi ***UPNOW***
5: tiberion02 >>Skip<<

 

[playshogi]

OK, got it! Looks like nice turns.

 

[Simon_c]

good turns. !
I'd have gone for the taj, but I think this minerte was the best decision.

I'll try to look at the save soon to comment on Oxford.

Why do we want the NE? Doesn't it just increase culture and nothing else ? Or do I have that wrong.

 

[Madtown]

good turns. !
I'd have gone for the taj, but I think this minerte was the best decision.

I'll try to look at the save soon to comment on Oxford.

Why do we want the NE? Doesn't it just increase culture and nothing else ? Or do I have that wrong.

I'm pretty confident we can get Taj as well. Liz is the only one with nationalism and most of her cities are meh.

NE gives 100% GPP. It's Hermitage that increases culture.

Edit: I wanted to add these two nice looking graphs.

Things are looking good for us.

 

[playshogi]

I wish I could say that my personal games went this well.

 

[Simon_c]

I wish I could say that my personal games went this well.

Me too.

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