SGFN-04: Ragnar for Secretary-General!

[anaxagoras]

OK, I'm finally finished.

Here's the log:

Spoiler :

Pre-flight:

C3C in windowed mode, text editor up. Have a look at the cities and units:

64 Native Workers
1 Horseman
4 Knights
59 Cavalry
15 Infantry
13 Berserkers
5 Medieval Infantry
6 Ancient Cavalry
35 Artillery
3 Armies (1x knight, 2x cavalry)
4 Galleons
2 Transports
3 Destroyers

Some builds I don't really understand, but I keep most of them anyway. The builds are not crucial at this point.

Hit Enter...

IBT
Various frigates bombard. Big deal. Alicante deposes to the Spanish. Annoying, but we should be able to retake. More annoying, the Spanish cavalry come out and block up the rails. Complicated series of attacks needed to clear the way.

1505:
Artillery bombards Alicante. Elite cavalry move to retake. It took one attack. Move units to quell resistance.
Various attacks to clean up the blocking units. Some mistakes in combat order, but no losses.
Bombard and attack Malaga. City falls.
Bombard and attack Santiago. City falls.
Send in combat railing teams to connect the new cities and move the offensive forward.
Position units to speed the conquest of Spain.
Found Bottleneck near Santiago to block Spanish egress from the pennisula.
Rush build a settler to have for next turn's offensive.

IBT:
Maya offer to trade luxes, plus we kick in 132 gpt. No, thanks.
Maya reinforce continental border.
Spanish boats continue harrassing.
Pollution strikes Wonsan.
Resistance in Alicante ends. So much for the rebels.

1510:
Six artillery fire at Barcelona, redline all defenders. Three elite cavalry attack and win three combats. Barcelona falls. Unfortunately, the culture doesn't extend as far as hoped. Spain will live for one more turn.
Three cavalry penetrate to Seville without the benefit of artillery. Three combats won, Seville falls and we own Sun Tzu's.
Manuver unis and workers for final push.
Rome learns flight. Sumeria offers it for less, though. We can have it for 4239. We accept.

IBT:
Gilgamesh demands Saltpeter, or else. Sorry, Gilgy. He declines to start a war.
Spain continues the frigate attacks. No effect.
A couple infantry abandon Madrid to chase unprotected cavalry which we left outside Seville. They kill one, we amazingly win with one, and the last retreats. Three less defenders to overwhelm.
Pollution strikes Reykjavik.
Murcia flips.

1515:
Start a couple airports, including one on the island.
Bombardment at Madrid goes poorly. All defenders damaged, but not all redlined. Will begin combat with the armies.
1st Cavalry makes two attacks, four damage.
2nd Cavalry makes two attacks, two damage.
Elite cavalry attacks, two damage.
Tadpolian Death Master (vet cav) attacks, and unfortunately lives up to it name by dying.
Vet cav attacks, takes city with one damage. We own Copernicus' Observatory, the Great Wall, and the Colossus. We also get a market, a bank, and a hospital.
Bombardment goes better at Toledo. All units see red.
three elite cavs attack, all win. Toledo falls, leaving a market, a bank, and an aqueduct.
Elite cav attacks the lone defender at Murcia without artillery. Wins. The city falls, Spain is defeated, and appropriately, we get great leader Erik Bloodaxe. Erik builds an army.

IBT:
Buncha builds.
People love us. We build a western hallway.

1520:
Collect units in stacks by unit type.
Found New Bergen. The Mayan front is now as flat as we can make it.
Sumeria knows Mass Production. We'll need a UN pre-build soon. I do not yet buy the tech.

IBT:
Zzz.

1525:
Zzz.

IBT:
Zzz.

1530:
Begin UN prebuild in Copenhagen.
Purchase Mass Production from Rome for 3217 gold.

IBT:
Zzz.

1535:
Zzz.

IBT:
Zzz.

1540:
Sumeria learns Motorized Transport. This time we buy at monopoly prices: 7227 gold.
Sumeria learned Ecology as their free tech.
Gift Korea up to the Modern Era. Remarkably, they learn Fission.
Our pre-build is not yet finished, so we do not yet buy Fission.

IBT:
Zzz.

1545:
Not much.

IBT:
Rome and Korea sign MPP. We are scared now.

1550:
Found Oslo, Birka, Stavanger.

End of set.

Not much left except to wait for the pre-build to finish. Sorry I didn't start it soon enough.

 

[ThinkTank]

Looking good! Looks like almost done. How many turns for the prebuild to finish?

Am I up? New computer to arrive on Thursday, I can probably play in the weekend.

 

[anaxagoras]

Looking good! Looks like almost done. How many turns for the prebuild to finish?

About ten, IIRC, but the palace costs less than the UN. I think we're about 14-15 turns from victory. I didn't realize that Sumeria was on such a fast tech pace. I underestimated by more than a factor of two. I would have converted the army build to a UN pre-build if I had realized how fast Sumerian research was going.

I did NOT check this last turn to see if Sumeria had acquired Fission. We should get it as soon as we aren't paying 3x prices. Actually, it might be worth paying the 3x price to Korea. We don't really need that much gold at this point, and we don't care if Korea has it.

Whoever handles the vote turn: Don't forget about ROP and MPP agreements when buttering up the voters. They can go a long way toward attitude improvements.

And I was amazed at how much there was to do on turns that I marked with "Zzz." Just sorting the units after the war and ensuring we had garrisons in towns still with rebels took a good long time. Even on the last turn, when I was basically just coordinating worker moves, it took plenty of time.

 

[TheOverseer714]

You might get the honors of winning this, ThinkTank. I would say you probably should just play the 11th turn on your turnset and finish it off right then, as it would be silly for someone to just play 1 or 2 turns to win it.

 

[Rodent]

Looks like this SG is about to be wrapped up, any plans for a new SG?

 

[ThinkTank]

You might get the honors of winning this, ThinkTank. I would say you probably should just play the 11th turn on your turnset and finish it off right then, as it would be silly for someone to just play 1 or 2 turns to win it.

Good! I will look at the save tomorrow, play in the weekend.

1545:
Not much.

IBT:
Rome and Korea sign MPP. We are scared now.

In fact this would be scaring a bit if the MPP involved Sumeria, because that would threaten our plan of allying with all against Sumeria just before the vote. In fact, maybe we should preempt these MPPs by allying and declaring early. What does the team think?

Looks like this SG is about to be wrapped up, any plans for a new SG?

I have been thinking about this. I think we are in for a new challenge, so one level up. Demigod, no variant, just win. Tribe and map negotiable, though I'm leaning to the Dutch on archipelago.

 

[ThinkTank]

New computer arrived! I survived 4 weeks of not playing civ! If C3C installs well I can look at the save tonight.

Got it.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I was mulling over an India Conquest at some point, something about a peace-loving Gandhi as a warlord conquering the whole world has some appeal. "India stomps the world", a Pangaea world at Emperor level should be nearly as challenging as a DG Archi game. ThinkTank's idea has some merit too, I even have an idea for name for it: Dutch Treat Demigod SG. We'll need some input on both, and we'll need players whichever we go with first. I think I'm up for another sometime soon.

 

[anaxagoras]

I'll be up for another, although I will likely start an idependent SG of my own in the very near future. It could be running at the same time as SGFN05. I'll cross post to this thread when I get started. The game will be a little different.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I need to finish a few before joining any more, but I'll be watching yours and rooting you on, Anax. Can you give me any hints of what you are planning? I have some ideas floating around, and I'd be happy to advise and/or brainstorm with you.

 

[anaxagoras]

Well, I've been thinking about contributing to the Stories and Tales forum, but I never seem to have the time to come up with a whole story on my own. So I wanted to combine the concepts. Basically a succession story game. Post a turn log and a short, free-form plot line related to the set. It lets me contribute part of a story and would make for a fun diversion. I figure game pace would have to be fairly slow to allow for authoring.

Thoughts? You think I'll find people who want to do it?

 

[TheOverseer714]

Interesting concept. There are some who participate in both forums, but not many. Maybe a small group of 3 or 4 doing somewhere around 20-40 turn sets detailing their actions via a story with pictures. Call them co-authors. You could run the SG here and run the actual story there, as I'm sure that forum wants the story, not the "how it was done" It's worth a shot.

 

[anaxagoras]

I have started SSG01 (Succession Story Game 01) in this thread. There is a link in the first post to the corresponding story thread (though nothing has been started yet, of course). You are all encouraged to play with us, of course, but if you decide you don't want to, I hope you will at least lurk. If nothing else, we need a supportive audience!

Congrats on getting the computer, ThinkTank. I look forward to seeing you polish this one off.

 

[darski]

I have started SSG01 (Succession Story Game 01) in this thread. There is a link in the first post to the corresponding story thread (though nothing has been started yet, of course). You are all encouraged to play with us, of course, but if you decide you don't want to, I hope you will at least lurk. If nothing else, we need a supportive audience!

Congrats on getting the computer, ThinkTank. I look forward to seeing you polish this one off.

I will be lurking fer shure when y'all get that story game up and running. It could be a lot of fun to follow... something different

 

[ThinkTank]

Will play later today, will do my turnset in CBob04 first. In the mean time, can the team answer this (I forgot since it is very long ago I did a UN victory): once the UN completes, do we get an election immediately, or is there a number of turns delay?

 

[vmxa]

Lurker:

You get it immediately.

 

[TheOverseer714]

You get 1 immediately and then one every 11 turns. Why 11? AFAIK, no one has ever figured that out.

 

[ThinkTank]

We win! In 1605 AD, score 6822. Cheers team!

Turnlog coming up, here are some pics.

Spoiler :

Turnlog.

Spoiler :

1550 AD. All looks well. Not much too do, except some final jungle clearance and irrigation.
Fission still too expensive, Korea wants all our gold, some 15000, 650 gpt, 2 techs and 2 resources. I mean we can afford it but let's wait a bit.

IBT - zzz

1: 1555 AD.
Korea still only tribe that has fission.

IBT - zzz

2: 1560 AD. Sumeria has fission too. Buy it from Korea, now for 10000 + 110gpt. Copenhagen prebuild switched to UN, ready in 9.
Decide to start serious gifting around T-5, and until then just keep all polite. Right now everyone is polite except Maya who are annoyed. Gift them 200g and they turn polite.

IBT - zzz

3: 1565 AD - zzz

IBT - zzz

4: 1570 AD - zzz

IBT - zzz

5: 1575 AD - zzz

Pollution in Copenhagen. This costs a turn, after cleanup, UN in 7.
Rocketry is around. I buy it from Rome for fission, salt, coal and 1200g.
Korea is cautious. I give them wines and they turn polite.
Our palace expands.

IBT - zzz

6: 1580 AD
UN in 5. Sell rocketry to Maya for gems.

IBT - zzz
Romans want to renegotiate an incense deal, we add 5gpt and they are fine with it.

7: 1585 AD
UN in 4.
Gift Maya, Rome and Korea a luxury, as well as 3 gifts of 100g each. They all stay polite.

IBT - zzz

8: 1590 AD
UN in 3.
Time for some action. Korea has only 1 town neighboring Sumeria, so to give them a safe house I gift Salamanca to Korea.
I sign MPP's with Korea, Rome, and Maya. Then I declare on Sumeria, enter their coastal waters with a cruiser and shell a tile.

IBT - zzz
Our cruiser is bombed into oblivion by 4 Sumerian bombers. Strangely enough, the others do not declare on Sumeria.

9: 1595 AD
UN in 2.
Hmm, long time ago that I signed MPPs to have forgotten how they work. Ok, then explicit alliances. I sign an alliance against Sumeria with Maya, Rome and Korea and they all declare on Sumeria. Right on.

IBT - zzz
New Stavanger is bombed by Sumerian bombers. A stack of 6 Sumerian units lands near Karakorum.

10: 1600 AD
UN in 1. Finally some action. Artillery redlines all 6 land units, as well as 6 destroyers and 2 transports.
A cruiser and a cruise missile then sink 2 destroyers. The 6 land units are killed without any problems. Move some flaks and SAMs to the area, as well as bombers and fighters.

IBT - zzz
Another Sumerian landing of 6 land units. Too little too late!
New Stavanger is bombed again by Sumerian bombers.

11: 1605 AD
Copenhagen completes UN. We win 4-1, everyone votes for Ragnar except Gilgamesh who votes for himself.

The save of end 1600 AD, hit enter and win this yourself!

 

[TheOverseer714]

Well done, ThinkTank and all our team over the months. This thing took some doing, but it went very well. If I ever do another zero science game like this, I think we'll up the ante, make it a space race at Demigod, maybe even on a Pangaea. But in the meantime, I want some nice, relaxing war

 

[darski]

Good game and a great win. it is so hard to just wait for that last few turns to complete.

Excellent.

BTW, did you ever discover why the Spanish stuck to the game?