sc:01 Moddern war

[Simon_c]

Go for it. No discussion needed as far as I can see.

I guess we need to start building settlers, but I'm not sure how we fund out new cities. Running representation boosted merchants ?

 

[S.ilver]

1050AD (250):

Preflight check. Well, it appears that WW is starting to take its toll. Mass unhappy faces all over our empire. I contemplate switching to Police State, but realize that the lost happy faces from Representation wouldn't be compensated by the lost angry people.

Memphis and Thebes are also building Catapults. Don't think those will be necessary... Thebes dials up a courthouse, while Memphis works on a quick Colosseum.

1060AD (251):

We are the 6th most advanced civ in the world! Wait, that's not good.

Spoiler :

Cats reduce Knossos, and suicide cat 1 goes in...! It withdraws after pounding on Alex's archer. Not even a scratch! Phalanx is next and it gets owned by the Shock Phant at 96.9% odds. Sgt. Sulla owns the Chariot, and it leaves the almost dead archer that the catapult was chewing on. lol, I tried to attack it with a catapult but the game won't let me. Still don't know how our cat managed to kill something earlier.

Ok, so give free exp to CR2 Axeman for the promo next turn.

Spoiler :

Knossos is put to the torch to save us 5gpt.

Burning that city reveals 3 free workers that a spearman picks up.

Clearly our workers have run out of things to do. I was going to hook up the copper for fun, but then noticed that Elephantine has popped a copper. When did that happen (or is my reading just bad)?

Units assembled at Navajo don't stand a chance against Ephesus without a cat or two, so I leave them in our cultural borders so they don't bleed supply.

Spy in Thebes starts the long walk up to Ephesus.

Amsterdam is done a cat, and starts on a Colosseum. Elephantine is done its Colosseum, so starts a 1 turn Obs.

1070AD (252):

Unit shuffling to move healed units towards the front, and scare up some catapults. I don't think the spy is going to be able to make it on time.

Elephantine starts a settler, for our grand repopulation plan.

1080AD (253):

Dump units towards Argos. It should be gone in two turns.

Right, I have a missionary in Alexandria. Look around and see that he'll have to go to Athens.

Amsterdam's Colosseum is done and it's no longer pissed. It starts a settler too.

1090AD (254):

AP vote comes up and we can either vote for ourselves, or abstain. LOL

Ok, just plotted the spy's path, and it will take him 10 turns to get to Ephesus. Do we really care about stealing a tech that much to keep Alex alive? We'd have to make peace to stop WW from killing our economy. Ironically, Alex will give us Literature for peace .

Memphis done Colosseum, go for a quick Obelisk.

1100AD (255):

Civil comes in. We can now chain farm! Dial up Optics so we can get some caravels going.

lol, not everyday you see this.

Spoiler :

Alex clearly lacks Islam in any of his remaining cities.

Revolt to Bureaucracy. Saves us a bit of gold (but the maintenance is high too).

Cats resize Argos' defensive bonus. Cats have terrible odds to win, so I let the CR3 Axeman eat the Archer first. Shock Phant then kills the swordsman good. It appears Alex also built a catapult there between turns. This is a rare opportunity to XP the HA, so send it in with 99.2% chance. It cleans up flawless. We sink a galley and get a new worker (more?).

Spoiler :

Ok, WTH? Alex founded Rhodes on that icy island out there. Meanwhile, all boats are on the wrong side of our continent, and won't be able to get around thanks to ice. Looks like we're going to have to give him peace (and get Lit) anyways. I'll take care of Ephesus, and deal with that.

1110AD (256):

Athens gets Islamized, to save us some money.

Dial up an Aqueduct in Memphis. We don't really need it yet, but we cannot pay for more units.

1120AD (257):

Navajo's forge is done, and I start a Colosseum. So does Alexandria.

Settler done in Elephantine, send him to White Dot site showed in Madtown's latest dotmap. Will not found the city yet because I don't feel like financially bleeding to death. Elephantine itself dials up a stable.

1130AD (258):

Units are parked next to Ephesus and it will die next turn. Begin bombardment with cat that retains movement points.

Amsterdam's settler is also done, so it heads towards Memphis, which is nearest to the dotmaps (and also our capital). It dials up a aqueduct because a lighthouse for two tiles doesn't seem worth it .

1140AD (259):

Ephesus is resized, and I send it the suicide cat. It dies, but damages the Phalanx, along with collateral to everything else. CR2 Swordsman kills the Phalanx and gets 3 more XP in the battle (sweet). We've got an archer and a spearman left, so the CR3 Axe eats the archer. Spearman is removed by the shock axe, and Ephesus burns.

Spoiler :

Dial Alex for peace.

Spoiler :

We get Lit, and he has no gold left .

Run around to check all cities for optimization. Note that Alex settled a Great Artist and a Great General in Sparta. Fun stuff. Those settled great people are also benefiting from Representation (didn't know that). After Sparta is done the courthouse to stop the -10 maintenance, a library is in order.

1150AD (260):

Note that Heliopolis has a queue full of stuff. Wondering why we need a spy being built there, but Madtown can worry about that .

Spy has finally made it to Navajo. We should build boats here for Alex's final demise.

Thebes is done the courthouse, and dials up another settler. Elephantine is done its stable, so orders a Galley because it's on the correct side of the continent for raiding Alex .

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[Simon_c]

solid turns Silver.
We'll have to look out for Alex settling back on the mainland with his next settler !
Are there any places we can put forts to let our boats through (long term plan, not to deal with Alex)

I guess we need some cottage cities build ASAP to get the tech rate moving.

 

[Madtown]

Got it.

Looks like a builder set for me.

 

[Simon_c]

madtown: We need some sea units on the west coast to finally take Alex down when we decide to. He'll just keep popping back up like a roach if we don't finish him.

 

[Madtown]

1150 AD (IHT): Preflight check: as I check through the cities, I notice that we have been a bit too zealous with our city improvements &#8211; particularily cottages. Many cities have cottages that they won&#8217;t work for centuries, if at all. Others (like Alexandria) have cottages when the city ought to be geared for production with workshops. IMO, considering our variant most coastal cities should be production oriented. Remember, just because we have spare workers and unimproved tiles, doesn&#8217;t mean that we have to put cottages everywhere. It does us no good to build cottages in cities that can&#8217;t work them for years, and will probably have to be replaced later with workshops or mills when they are available. Also, farms on plains tiles are a unless absolutely necessary for food or chain irrigation. Even with Bio, plains farms are junk. Not a big deal, but it would be nice if we plan ahead a little smarter.

I also notice that our continent spans from north pole to south pole, without any access through. As such, we ought to be able to block any other civs from winning the circumnav bonus (for awhile at least), as long as we keep our world map secret.

1160 AD:
Settler finishes in Memphis. Turns out we have another ready to settle N of the wheat on the west coast. I ponder for awhile on where to send the newest one and decide on one of the spots south of Thebes (good land to improve and less maintenance than other spots).

Redistribute garrison troops to some of the soon-to-be-founded city spots. Order various workers to new city sites as well.

Settle Pi-Ramesses 1N of the wheat, starts on a granary.

1170 AD:

Memphis: aqueduct -> x-bow
Amsterdam: something -> x-bow
Navajo: colosseum -> harbor
Alexandria: colosseum -> forge (not sure why we built the colosseum before a forge or market here)

The x-bows are to replace outdated garrisons. Hopefully I can start deleting obsolete or low level troops soon.

1180 AD:
Thebes: settler -> xbow
Ele: galley -> galley

1190 AD:
Five million souls!

Helio: Islamic monastery -> settler

Settle Giza, start on a granary.

1200 AD:

Thebes: xbow -> settler
Memphis: xbow -> settler
Amsterdam xbow -> xbow

Islam spreads to Giza.

1210 AD:

Ele: galley -> xbow

GG born in far away land &#8211; someone must be warring.

1220 AD:

Optics finished, I choose paper for possible UoS.

Settle Byblos at Red 1 site, starts a lighthouse. I also slot in a workboat at Elephantine (should&#8217;ve done it earlier).

1230 AD:
Thebes: settler -> xbow
Amsterdam: xbow -> trireme ( caravels are available)
Navajo: harbor -> market

1240 AD:
Elephantine: workboat -> workboat

Islam spreads to Byblos

Kong Mio BIFAL

Caste system is not doing anything for us, so I revolt to slavery and commence the whipping. Both Sparta and Athens get whipped for courthouses. Also whip the forge in Alexandria.

1250 AD:
Memphis: settler -> caravel
Elephantine: workboat -> caravel
Helio: settler -> colosseum
Alexandria: forge -> caravel
Athens: courthouse -> library
Sparta: courthouse -> granary

Note to playshogi: there are a several units on GOTO orders &#8211; a xbow settler pair headed for the spot south of red1, two workboats headed to resources near Byblos, maybe a few other xbows headed for garrison duty. Feel free to delete any outdated garrisons when they arrive. We also have settlers headed for Orange dot N of Amsterdam and the fish/corn/iron site south of Alexandria. Not sure if they have garrisons enroute also. Your choice when to settle those spots.

Hope I didn&#8217;t too much for this turnset.

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[S.ilver]

Ack. Sorry about the plains farms. That was my I'm not up to scratch in "farm value 101". What's a better use for plains? If we're lacking food in a city, I'd assume it would be better to work the plains and have it support itself, rather than not.

I too noticed our massed cottages. Not sure what was up with that. I did put some more cottages by Helio, but that's because I thought it was going to be a commerce city.

 

[Madtown]

Well if they are farmed to spread irrigation, or if the city NEEDS to have farmed plains to be food positive, then it's OK.

After looking back into the save, turns out there is only one instance of a plains farm, so I guess I came down too hard about that. Outside Navajo (under the xbow):

Spoiler :

We do want the other farms in order to irrigate the corn N of Navajo, though we may want to change that later once the city has grown to full size - it doesn't actually need any farms to be food positive. We should also refrain from chopping the two forests N of Navajo, they will provide many hammers once we get lumbermills.

Here are two examples of the (IMO) unnecessary cottage spamming.

Spoiler :

Granted, we did clear jungle from the tiles near Alexandria, and we also won't have anything better to do with the grassland until we get workshops. My thinking is that we should farm one more of the grasslands, then put down workshops (when available) on the other 3. Late game, a grassland workshop is 1/3/0 (1/4/0 if we go with state property?).

We should also build workshops, mills, or cottages on most of the elephant resouces. Phant camps are subpar improvements except for the very early game. Also, I've noticed if you have lots of extra resources the AI tends to make more demands for them. Better to just keep 1 or 2 extra for trading and build better improvements on the rest.

It's really not a big deal. We have had a pretty large workforce since early on and while fighting with Alex there wasn't much for them to do. Hell, it's possible I even built one of those cottages during my set... However, we would be smart to specialize most coastal cities for production, as a strong navy will be key for our variant.

Anyways, I just wanted to illustrate my point about city tile planning. It is important that we plan carefully now that we own our continent, since we'll likely be on economy and city improvement for the next round of turnsets (other than a small foray to destroy Alex).

I hope no one thinks I'm trying to burn their playing - it's just a few observations. We've got a solid team here, IMO.

 

[S.ilver]

Not a problem. My play can be questionable outside of wartime tactics, so I welcome the criticism (and I fully know that there will be during my turn ).

Can't speak for Elephantine's cottage. I farmed over the two cottages on the grasslands to feed that city. Come to think of it, I should've prioritized clearing that jungle south of the river, I could've farmed over that cottage as well.

Still not sure about "plains theory" though. Do we want workshops on them instead? I'm not exactly sure what improvement we'd put on it to make better use of it.

As for the Phants, that's a good observation, although I've never noticed the AI demands. We've got some Phants that will be outside of the FC of cities, so that makes sense. Speaking of special resources, what about the Sugar? We obviously can't connect it yet because we neglected Calendar, but when we get it, should we replace all the farms in Heliopolis? It has a pair of hills and a plains forest.

EDIT: Workshops are 1/3/0 on grass, 1/4/0 if we run Caste, and 2/3/0 if we run State Property. Since they're not mutually exclusive, we could technically get 2/4/0, but Caste is made unattractive by Emancipation. Also, if we want to use Corps, we can't run State Property.

 

[playshogi]

OK, got it. City planning is a hard thing to do, but maybe easier in a succession game? Are we agreed that Red 1 gets Maoi and Amsterdam gets Heroic Epic? OTOH, we already have a settled GG in Elephantine and Sparta, but Sparta isn't coastal. Maybe, we can 'farm' another GG, by killing Alex down to 1 unit and waiting for him to build a 2nd unit before killing again.

IBT

Athens has 1 unhappy and growing in 1 turn so switch build to temple at slight starvation.

Sparta has 36 overflow so switch to cheap library from granary to maximize value of overflow and to improve value of free scientists from Great Library ASAP.

Not sure why Amsterdam is building tireme so switch to galley. We are spending 21pt on units plus 1pt for supply (!) multiplied by 43% inflation and still losing at 30% research.

I assign Navajo to building the Forbidden Palace, because it can build it in 12 turns and Athens and Sparta need other infrastructure improvements. I expect our game plan to include State Property in the future, but right now FP can help a lot.

Reassign citizens to maximize population growth in Thebes, Heliopolis, Elephantine, Navajo, and Alexandria. By redeploying to food/commerce tiles, I was able to increase science to 40% while losing minimal , so I increase it to 50% to save a turn on learning paper.

Memphis presents an interesting case of city planning. We have 6 extra food, so we could operate 3 workshops (before State Property) OR 3 more specialists OR at least 3 cottages, so I propose to build 3 cottages AND 3 workshops to provide maximum flexibility for this city. In any case, keep at least 2 forests for lumbermills and extra health.

Put idle workers in former Greece to work by building riverside cottages and riverside windmills.

That's it for now.

 

[Madtown]

Oops, sorry about Athens'

The trireme in Amsterdam is a total I realized it on the last turn but I guess I forgot to change the build.

Sounds like some good MMing so far shogi

Still not sure about "plains theory" though. Do we want workshops on them instead? I'm not exactly sure what improvement we'd put on it to make better use of it.

I usually go with watermills on riverside plains, lumbermills on forested plains, and workshops on bare plains, unless the city needs farms for food or irrigation. Of course, there are also occasions where a commerce city has some riverside plains that should be cottaged.

I think I on counting food at Navajo too -forgot to factor that workshops subtract 1 food from the tile. Probably wont be able to replace all the farms there.

 

[playshogi]

I had to load the save again before going to bed to check one thing. That is, after we learn paper in 3 turns, should I go for Divine Right next? (It would take almost 20 turns.) All the religions have been founded so if we want the Spiral Minaret, we'd have to go for it now. Or should we forget it and go for education immediately?

 

[Simon_c]

We're behind in tech, and we've not met the rest of the AIs yet. We should prioritise techs that have trade value I think.

I put the cottages around Elphantine. Sorry. I was at a loss with what to do with the workers....

City planning beyond is one of my week areas, especially as an empire grows, so I'm looking to pick up some pointers.

GG "farming" alex won't work unless we are really close to the limit for the next GG. The WW would kill us I think.

 

[Madtown]

I think we're too late to try for spiral minaret. According to the log, DR was researched by an AI in 1170AD. That means that by the time we could finish DR the AI would've had 28+ turns to build the minaret.

For next techs, I say education or PP.

 

[playshogi]

I'm afraid I didn't keep good notes. Blow by blow accounts of worker events and city builds is not my cup of tea, especially since alt+tabbing out of the game seems slower on my new computer. So the highlights:

1) Declared war on Alex and eliminated him. He had a single chariot defending his island city, so I led with a catapult attack which wounded the defender to 1 hit point. I followed this up with McCoy who had a 99.9% chance to win. He won and secured his next promotion to level 6! We can now build West Point. I didn't actually promote him, though, pending discussion from the team.

2) Univ. of Sankalore built in Thebes--well, 1 more turn to go.

3) I loaded 2 caravels with missionaries and sent them off. To our west we discovered Elizabeth and Isabella, who happen to be friendly with each other. No trades possible there. Isabella won't trade and we have nothing Elizabeth wants. However, to the east I discovered DeGaulle and Montezuma. Montezuma is a vassal of DeGaulle. I was able to make a trade with DeGaulle: Civil Service+100 for Feudalism. Now, Elizabeth needs Feudalism, so could probably get Calendar and some gold for that. Interestingly, the ladies are unaware of the gentlemen.

4) I'm afraid I didn't eliminate many units: 1 spear and the spy.

5) I built the Forbidden Palace in Navajo.

6) Heroic Epic has 5 more turns to go in Amsterdam.

7) I built 2 more cities and we are breaking even at 40% research.

8) We are number 1 in score, but there 3 more civs to meet.

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[Madtown]

Looking good shogi!

I think that I'd move the southern ice city 1W so that it is coastal and can at least bring in some from trade routes.

We should also plan on making a canal through the desert N of Alexandria and Navajo. I've never tried it, but I assume you can string forts together to allow ships to pass through land?

 

[Simon_c]

sorry, missed the post. got it and should play in a few hours.

 

[Simon_c]

OK. Turnset 7

Preflight:
turn 0 1300AD

OK. looks like our empire is a lot larger than the last time I was incharge. It's reached the stage where I start to lack focus, so I hope there's not too many

A quick wizz throug the cities and all looks OK.
A little MM at PiRam to work the mined hill not the forest.
The temple at Byblos looks prime for whipping in a couple of turns

I hope everyone's OK with some labels on the cities. Prodution, finance or mixed. It helps me figure out the builds etc.
Here's what they look like to me. upper case is major specialization, lower is minor. Feel free to argue with me.

thebes F
memphis Gppl ?
amsterdam Pf Or do we replace some cottages we spammed there with workshops ?
heliopolis F
elephantine P ??
navajo f ?
alexandria F
athens F
sparta F Sci
pi-ram ??
giza P ? Riverside ironworks looks OK here with lots of workshops in the long term ?
byblos F some p (moy statues here ?)
akhetaten P
hiercanpolis f

So, it looks like we're short on specialist production cities, but lots of our financial cities have OK production. Or have I got that all wrong ?


Turn 1:
University of Sankore comes in.
I took a picture of that, but it seems to have gone.

Which puts our science up by 20 or so I think.
Athens finishes it's cheep Colosseum.
I MM Athens to have an engineer too.

Memphis will pop a GP next, so I play around to increase the odds of a GS

I never know how many specialists to run. Do you try to grow to max pop asap, then move to specialists, or as long as you're growing at 2-4 food/turn, do you hire specialists ?
I start the troops on the long march south to the barb city that we need to get rid of to make our Panama Canal. 12 turns !

On the relegious side, we should plan on turning Elizabeth, then Izzy will probably declare war, which will keep those two occupied.

I'm not sure if getting DeGaulle to change will be worth it, Is Hammurabi a zellot ?

found a worker in the woods. Not sure what he's doing there.

Turn 2 1310AD

Thebes finishes it's courthouse so I set it onto Crosbowmen for city def.
Set Memphis onto a settler.

Verselli has been BIFL, so they do seem quite advanced...

Turn 3 1315AD
Set Helio to build wealth to try to break even.

turn4. 1320AD
Alexandria finishes a carvel, and starts on a workboat for the new city to it's south.
.
turn5: 1325AD
We find a new AI.

Spoiler :

I traded a map from our new AI Darius. Which will help on the circumnavigation bonus. It cost us Literature, which isn't a big deal.


Looks like Izabella and Elizabeth share a continent with the Holy Roman Empire, and Darius. Darius has the misfortune to be Taoist while the HRE is Christian. I think we have to split up this Christian love fest over here. Our missionaries should focus on HRE (if they can ).


turn6: 1330AD
Hammurabi offers us this deal

Spoiler :

Not exactly great, I say no cos I don't think we want to offer up optics yet./
Ahh, here we are. Charlemagne, our last AI I think.

Spoiler :

turn 7: 1335AD
DeGaulle asks for optics too.

I don't want to give it away until we have circumnavigation bonus...

Charlemagne asks for CoL.

Spoiler :

Now I think i'll give him this. hopefully we can get friendly enough for open borders and get some missionaries in there.

turn 8: 1340AD
Zzzz

turn 9: 1345AD
I guess I wasn't very diligent about waking all our troops up. I just found another bunch. Doh.

Spoiler :

Education in. Set to Drama, then we can pickup phosophey for liberalism.
Navajo: University so we can start to get our Oxford quota.


Turn 10: 1350AD.

Spoiler :

Drama in, set to Philosophy

We spread islam to London, and are very very close to the circumnavigation bonus.

looking at the cities on the crowded continent, I'm guessing we won't turn Elezabeth, she has way too many re legions anyway and is still following Catholic. Chalomain may turn if we are lucky.

 

[Madtown]

Report looks good, but we'll need a save before comments.

 

[Simon_c]

Doh, save and roster.

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