Sengir01 - Spying with a vengeance

[Norvin_Green]

Here's my method: Open the save and raise the ep slider to 100% and currently we would be at 777 ep's. Fire up 2 turns of anarchy and hit the space bar 40-50 times (damn, we have lots of units) and when all is said and done we are at 826 ep's. Obviously, we can't run at 100% for more than 4-5 turns so @ 50% we would we would gain 24.5 ep's per turn. Besides it kind of goes with the whole espionage theme of the game. In the long haul I really don't think it matters as from the looks of things this game is pretty much over unless we all start having some severe brain farts or the AP screws us.

 

[sturick]

Okay so the moral of the story (last 20 posts or so) can be summed up like this.

1)We build the Taj and then revolt to Theo and Nationhood (should have been a variant requirement but since it wasn't we will revolt when convienient). No reason to suffer through two or three turns of anarchy for such a small benefit.

2)The capital of our empire is Cologne...not Berlin. DOH!

 

[Norvin_Green]

I should be able to get my set in tonight.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Turn 0 1435 ad

Look through every city to get reacquainted with the game. My only question is why a forge in Borsippa after building culture? I swap in a market instead.

Turn 1 1440 ad

Send the LB’s toward garrison duty near the Monty/Alex border. Begin a market in Akkad. Too bad it’s a shrine city as there are 3 settled generals.

On another note, Alex is WHEOOHRN. Ghandi is his not-so-bff so let’s hope he heads that way. Searched around but unable to locate his SoD.

Turn 2 1445 ad

Some not-so-surprising news on the Saladin/Gilgamesh war front.

Sending 2 spies to hopefully revolt Hammy’s last cities to try and wrap this war up. I figured we have the ep’s on him we might as well use them.

Turn 3 1450 ad

The Arabian prince wants our military might to come to bear against Sumeria. Maybe at a later date my friend.

Turn 4 1455 ad

Our good fortune continues as a mine near Essen has tapped into a gold vein.

Saladin reverses his war fortunes against Gilga and nets this as well:

Alex wants to make this trade:

DENIED!

Turn 5 1460 ad

Got shrine? We will as soon as Kobo-Daishi gets his butt to Akkad.

In other exciting news, Alex/WK start the festivities with Ghandi.

Our spies are in place for next turns revolt (crosses fingers)


Turn 6 1465 ad

Our first spy does the job and we lose one knight in taking the next-to-last Babylonian city.

Gilgamesh stops by to break this deal off.

Turn 7 1470 ad

The Arab/Sumerian conflict comes to a halt.

Alex takes an Indian city and gets a GG.

The builder in me takes over and I pop Notre Dame in the queue for Cologne.

Turn 8 1475 ad

Monty and Gilgamesh cease their hostilities and we build a Jewish shrine shrinking our current negative gold per turn from 77 to 34.

Negotiate a gems for cash deal with Gilgamesh.

Steal banking from Ghandi.

Save attached

Whosit (up unless Sengir is better)
nocho (warming up)
sturick
Meiz
Sengir (skipped but might want a crack at this)
Norvin Green (glad to be done)

 

[Meiz]

We got the prophet! Btw. are we building Taj Majhal?

 

[Norvin_Green]

Yes in Berlin. 17 turns to go and we need to keep looking if someone else is building it.

 

[sturick]

Well done Norvin! You are a much better GP generator than I am!

A few things I think we need to do the next turnset.

1) Saladin is building Notre Dame....his will complete in 14 turns while ours is due in 22.
There is a defensive spy in Cuman that we can use to do the trick.
If we do this can we also fog bust the single tile of black just a little to the west? I betcha there is a city there.

1a) While we are at it. I find the large black fog on our map to be infuriating!
We are a nation built upon the backs of spies and we don't have intel on a large part of our world! This is simple to fix and can easily be done by a wandering spy.

2) We should be whipping out all of the gold multipliers as soon as possible out of Akkad.
Completing the market, bank, and grocer mean an additional 45-50 gpt for our empire straight away! Hinduizing the city will help in this regard as well!

3) Finish off Hammy and quickly turn our attention to Gandhi.
We need to grab some of his good land before Alex does.
Plus the shared conflict diplo might get us higher than cautious with him.

4)Please change the build queue in a few cities.
Change Frankfurt to something else. Maybe a hindu mish for Akkad first then a harbor for the trade route yield seems like a good start.
Swap the aquaduct in Munich...health isn't an issue here.
Swap Birka for a barracks before it finishes its maceman.

When in doubt of what to build, spies or missionaries are always useful!

5) If our upcoming GP doesn't happen to be the one percent chance for an artist then we can use Johannes Kepler to build an academy for culture purposes in Frankfurt.
Scientists bulb Education right now and that does us zero good.

 

[Meiz]

5) If our upcoming GP doesn't happen to be the one percent chance for an artist then we can use Johannes Kepler to build an academy for culture purposes in Frankfurt.

Sorry, but that's about the worst thing we could do with him . I'd rather just keep him waiting until he can be used for a GA.

We need to hire two specialists in Berlin or the great library city produces a GScientist next. So please hire an engineer and priest there and hope for Gspy. We might get a really bad roll and not produce a Gspy, but the GP can still be used for GA.

 

[Norvin_Green]

I think I started running 2 artists in Frankfurt after we got the GP so hopefully our odds will improve there.

 

[sturick]

I only suggested that because what are we going to do with 2 Great Scientists?
Saving one of them for a GA makes sense obviously.

I just doubted that we are going to get two more GPs that will allow us to run another golden age down the road thats all.

Why do you think I cursed the arrival of a Great Scientist during my set?
He is essentially useless to us...

Good catch on switching up Berlin to get the GP from there first btw!

 

[sturick]

I think we would be well served by purchasing Gilgameshes maps from him for 115 gold.
Small price to pay if you ask me.
It will solve problem 1a from my earlier post!

 

[Whosit]

Oh, I guess I'm up unless Sengir pops up later today. I can play sometime in the near future.

I'll check out the save a little later and see if I have any thoughts that haven't been covered already.

 

[nocho]

Looks good, my only disappointment is that Babylon is not generating any culture and that we thus don't have the marble online, which in turn makes the Taj such a long build. Not having the marble online is like throwing away hammers in Berlin. I suggest we switch babylon to a theater asap from the not to useful market and whip it whenever possible, if need be with a chop. Apart from that, good going Norvin!

By the way if we'd have 2 scientist we might bulb something like education. Ok, not that useful when you could steal it as well, but hey, it could be traded for hard cash. And for the sake of it start building some universities and Oxord for the time we get representation and our specialists start generating beakers... I agree though that another GA would be more beneficial.

 

[Whosit]

Would it be faster for Babylon to build culture to border-pop in order to get the marble faster?

 

[nocho]

Would it be faster for Babylon to build culture to border-pop in order to get the marble faster?

That's an excellent suggestion, never think of buiding culture myself . The answer is yes, takes 2 turns, so please do so!

Edit: checked agan, by hiring an engineer and working horse and 2 forests it's actually in 1 turn (while losing a bit of food).

 

[Norvin_Green]

Sorry about the faux pas with the marble I *ahem* : vaguely remember you mentioning it not too long ago.
Dumb question of the day #1 - (working from memory here) but I don't recall seeing too many libraries in our cities so we'd have to build them first before uni's, no?

 

[sturick]

We have zero reason to build unis and Oxford for that matter...I wouldn't waste our time with them.
And Norvin is right in that we don't have libraries in the majority of our cities anyways, and yes they would need to be built first.

Good thinking in regard to culture build for Babylon Whosit!

Quick question here...what if we are currently in a golden age when we build the Taj?
Does it just tack on 10 more turns for us? Do we lose it?
Odd situation...but since it is a slight possibility we should figure that out.

 

[nocho]

Never mind Norvin, it's an easy thing to forget about when there's a war out there . Besides, we can luckily adjust it in 1 turn as well.

On second thought I agree with Sturick that we'd better forget about libs and unis. It's more in theme to completely forego their use. They could be useful with representation and lots of specialists, but, nah, better to try and prove you don't really need science at all in this game!

GAs are accumulative by te way. If you're in 1 already it just adds 10 more turns (depending on speed and MoM).

 

[Whosit]

Rather random, but I recently played the Mastermind game on Newgrounds, it's kind of a RTS based on a small series by the same name, anyway. Rather than "teching" new research, you send out thugs to "steal science." The cutscenes involve your goons busting into research facilities, holding up the scientist at gun point, and stealing his "science," which is a test tube.

So I just thought that kind of fit with this games theme. Except, of course, that our "thugs" are highly trained spies and the scientists wouldn't have even known they were there.

 

[Sengir]

Game looks good guys. About the Nationalism vs Bureau debate: don't forget that Bureau is high upkeep and Nationalism is no upkeep. Besides, Nationalism is more in line with the theme of the game.


How many of us are stuck with 3.17 at the moment? If we can all switch to 3.19 we might save a couple of people a headache. Don't mind either way myself.