SGOTM 02 - VQ Black

[eektor]

can we give Osaka island a name?

New Japan? Ok, maybe not that creative but I can't think of something else.

I think now that Spain is at war with us we should at least try to do some damage and take some cities. Razing Toledo would be good but hopefully we can take one of the holy cities with a shrine before the war weariness hits us hard.

 

[Cosmichail]

Did I say peace. No I meant pieces like Eugene one of these days I am going to cut you into little pieces. (ok triviia question, what's that from guys?)

Peace, you're right NamliaM let get those cities Barcelona, Cordoba, and mmmm Madrid too. Get rid of the pyscho chick. One minute oh we love you and the next war. She always flips religions like that.

EDIT: Just looked at the save and just wondering why we are chopping right beside Osaka when we have forest that could be chopped in western tiles. I don't think that plains is being chopped and we should leave it and move further west to chop to keep plains forest for health/future lumbermill. I would chop two of those grassland forest to move GL to like 4 turns but that's me so that'd be up to LuvtoBuild. We are in position to raze Toledo.

 

[bobrath]

we need to found NARA on the stone Island.

If there is going to be a N___ city in this game, the stone island is perfect. I can rail against its uselessness and grumble to no end - all with no effect on the game. Stupid N___.

We need to ensure our safety there now so we need some more whipable places to produce some galleys and maybe one or 2 Axe after we get Forges in..., or would it be smart to declare war on Bismark and have him capture those cities? thats 10gpt in upkeep we have no need of paying anymore?!

How can bismark reach us? Does he have Astronomy? If not, then we're just culture buddies. Interesting to have Bismark reduce our maint - however does that really make sense for us to lose all the work we've done on those cities and all the arguing we did over when and were to build!?!

 

[Cosmichail]

How can Bismarck reach us? Does he have Astronomy?

I was wondering the same thing. I thought with OB the galley could traverse to his borders but something tells me not.

Bob I will be right beside you re Stone Island. Although once we get optics those whales will help those cities a lot. NamliaM's comment about letting Bismarck capture those cities isn't something I would consider. Why Kyoto would be a good GP farm once we get monarchy. Bismarck would have a hard time with Kyoto too since he would have to take it amphibious unless it wasn't garrisoned. Those kind of cities drive me crazy when I'm trying to take down a civ.

EDIT: Knowing NamliaM sense of humour he's probably did that on purpose re Nara.

 

[eektor]

If anything we gift the two cities to Bismark and hopefully get lots of money and tech, but I would not want to do that at all.

As for sending a galley over, if the culture borders are touching you can send a galley over with OB regardless of the ocean in between.

 

[Cosmichail]

Checked save again and the Bismarck (good ole chap) will trade monarchy/gold for Code of Laws. I would do it as he does have alpha since he can see lit. So we should rush GL with as much chopping as possible on western grass forests. I wish we had left those plains forest but in the long run we can put cottages there too for river commerce so nothing really lost but I would leave that last one. Also re the GS we should use him for philosophy as normally I would use him for academy in Osaka but we don't have a transporter. Once we get philosophy Bismarck will trade us a lot more goodies we need.

EDIT: Bismarck is fairly advanced and it appears his landmass isn't that far from our mainland. He has CS maybe or lacks the prerequisite for it. Generally a peaceful neighbour even with a different religion.

 

[pigswill]

Reasons for chopping beside Osaka. Better hammer return for proximity to city; don't like plain-forest tiles;riverside location means trade when cleared;better off having 1 farm, 1 workshop (2f,3p,2t) than 2 forest (2f,4p). Main factor though is hammer loss for distant tiles when you feel like you're in a race to complete.
Edit: on reflection Bizy is not a threat in near future;two way travel through open borders but as soon as war is declared he loses ocean passage through our borders; so feel free to not bother with archer. One thought I thought is that longer term galleys upgrade to galleons (for 100gp a shot) while caravels don't. To get an instant fleet have 10 galleys, 1000gp and voila 10 galleons as soon as you get astronomy.
Edit: IIRC Japan consists of 4 main islands, middle one is Honshu, north one is Hokkiado, don't remember names of two southern ones off hand so what about we call Osaka island Honshu?
Another Edit: Nara is nada till optics for whales.

 

[Cosmichail]

Makes sense Pigswill and you're right about the hammer loss. Lumbermills are a long way off. I like the idea of the galleons as it's something I do in my SP games.

As to island name I have always liked Hokkaido for some reason and agree about Stone Island although knowing Bismarck if he has no land left will settle there once we open borders eventually.

 

[LuvToBuild]

Battle Plan

1. Move injured force to combine with two swordsmen and medic spearman. This will allow the injured force to heal faster.

2. Rush to get TGL built so that Osaka can build some cats. I think I will probably build an archer in Tokyo when the axeman completes. An archer would take less time to complete than another axeman or swordsman, meaning that he will be finished shortly after Construction is discovered. It wouldn't hurt to have a second archer in Tokyo anyway.

3. Prepare the troops for assaulting Cordoba. I probably won't be able to take it myself since our army will need cats and my turns will be ending by the time we have a couple of cats to send with them. Cordoba has walls and its a holy holy city so its defense value is at least 50%, if not greater due to culture. Cats will even things up and allow the swords to hopefully take less damage. I concur with CR promotions for the cats. They will tend to last longer.

4. I will see what Bismarck is willing to trade. Calendar is something we should put off until we need it for Astronomy. We have nothing within our sight that needs a plantation. Bella has Calendar so she has probably already been kind enough to build sugar plantations for us near Barcelona. Horseback Riding might be nice but Bismarck tends to be stingy with his military techs. Monarchy or Currency sounds good but if I can get Horseback Riding, I think I might lean towards that since we are at war and Horse Archers would be really nice. I assume we only want to trade CoL and hold off on Literature for now. You never know when Bismarck might have a GE hanging around and suddenly beat us to TGL. I'll check his civics during the meeting and see if he has Representation. If he does, we know he's the one who built the Pyramids. He tends to like that wonder.

5. I wasn't sure why the rush to an OB with Bismarck but if what eektor is saying is true, then I can see that being a good thing to get soon. I was planning to probably do that anyway just to butter him up some for trading techs. The more positives we can get, the better chance we have of getting a decent deal. Regarding war with Bismarck, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one thinking that was a bit out there After consideration, it didn't sound like such a bad idea after all but it would still mean retaking those cities later, not to mention hurt our score in the meantime. Besides, if we get Monarchy and get our happy cap up on Kyoto, it will make a great GP farm.

6. Why the rush for a granary of all things in Kyoto? Like it's not growing fast enough already? It has a happy cap of 4 and its at 6 right now. Do we plan to beat the living daylights out of these poor people or what? We should be rushing to the NE there and then try to get Monarchy for increasing the happy cap. Currency would allow us to put a market there and setup two merchants. A couple of scientists and a couple of merchants would help things a good deal.

7. Should I use the GS or let him sit around a while longer? Letting him grab Philosophy would give us something pretty worthwhile to trade to Bismarck. Of course, that would put him that much closer to Liberalism. I could have him build an academy in Kyoto. Not as nice as one in Osaka but with enough scientists in Kyoto, it would still be nice. Basically 4.5 beakers for every scientist there instead of 3. Even more with Representation later on. We could get 4.5 for every non scientist and 9 for every scientist. That's probably the way to go long term.

Anyway, those are my thoughts for now. Feel free to call me

ADDED THOUGHT: What about grabbing Philosophy with the GS, holding on to it for now and building Angkor Wat? We know Izzy was the first to get it and Bismarck might be close. But if we settled nam's precious stone city, we could build it quick and maybe do the same with it as we did with SH. Angkor would give us two per priest plus a , better than an engineer and we wouldn't need a religion since Angkor allows three priests specialists. What do you guys think?

 

[bobrath]

If I could just submit a single smiley... or perhaps or even

 

[pigswill]

I believe from trade chart that Isabella has two stone quarries in operation already.
What no smilies?

 

[Cosmichail]

Why don't we let Izzy build Angkor Wat and once GL is built focus on taking her out for good. (since she does have 2 stone quarries) although I am not against whipping it in Kyoto and like the affects of Angkor Wat.

Madrid has the Oracle too which will help with GP points and I like that city up there. We will just need a lot more workers for Barcelona/Seville but they will be great commerce cities eventually with cottages. We have a nice small military force and with cats should be able to take Cordoba soon. Izzy does not have Iron yet hooked up so no swords there.

As to Bismarck I would prefer to have Monarchy to deal with happiness cap in Kyoto/Edo but again I see the sense in getting Horse archers for our war.

EDIT: Geez I just realized it's conquest so we will have to go after Bismarck eventually.

 

[bobrath]

Yup, if we meet em, we gots to kill em.

 

[namliaM]

New Japan? Ok, maybe not that creative but I can't think of something else.

FKaS??

Spoiler :

Formarly Known as Spain

We can have peace for some juicy tech she has, leaving her with some small deadspeck of some jungle towns... We take Holy cities and stuff leave her the other jungle mess.... for now... save us some upkeep and get some techs.

NARA I think is the next "natural" city name that is up...

If anything we gift the two cities to Bismark and hopefully get lots of money and tech, but I would not want to do that at all.

As for sending a galley over, if the culture borders are touching you can send a galley over with OB regardless of the ocean in between.

Your both right... Remember SGOTM1? We couldnt use the culture bridge of HC cause we were at war allready... We are save till astronomy you're right...

Checked save again and the Bismarck (good ole chap) will trade monarchy/gold for Code of Laws.

He has CS maybe or lacks the prerequisite for it. Generally a peaceful neighbour even with a different religion.

Code of Law => CS???

I was thinking to whip Catapults and lots of them. Transfer them to Bismarks lands and hit some neighbouring AI with them. We can add in Samurais later, a stack of 10 (and more comming) cats with a few archers for (cheap) defence can do a lot of damage to an AI....

On 3. The war
We dont need catapults.... just dont go after cordoba just yet... All it had back when was some forrest and an unmined hill.... Low production anyway...
I would head north on our west coast, go thru barcalona and take her only big producer with the cats Madrid, that are comming up. Leave her 2 or 3 cities, peace for a tech (or two) and then kill her. Tho Barcalona and Madrid are going to be the hardest ones to crack with Madrid beeing 50% and on a hill...

On 4. Calander
I agree we dont need and certainly dont want Calander for a while. Tho on my pass of Barcalona, there was no Plantation and NO worker working on it. Now at war... I dont think there will be a plantation.

On 5 OBs with Bismark
YES YES YES, borders are touching and Eektor is right...
GET OBs ASAP and send our two galleys around his island/continent. Hopefully finding more AI... If we find more AI get NARA and start whipping CATs... a cat is 40 hammers. in 15 turns (time to ware off the whip) Kyoto produces 30 hammers + 45 of the whip = 75 or ~2 cats every 15 turns.
The same is true for NARA (to be founded) and Edo, Actually I think both are a little better than Kyoto. That is 6 Cats every 15 turns. In 30 turns we have 12. Mix in some Archers/LBs for some D and we can do some serious damage to an AI... Even if it has LBs.
We want to get a scout (maybe two) over to bismark too. Find Iron preverably on/near the coast. Then we can start whipping Samurais in the BT (Bermuda Triangle)
The catch is that we need OBs with Bismark, but we can start warring on the big continent before Astronomy. Which will be a big + over waiting for Astronomy.
In this version we need FKaS only for generating enough gold to support the army and 1 or 2 monster production cities on FKaS. We raze near the rest...

On 6.
We no have no need for bloody NE. We need the Granary to stimulate groth after whipping = more turns of scientists in the long run.
Like I said, I think we want to whip and army of Cats ASAP.
The game should be over before we spawn our lets say 3rd? scientist...

On 7 Burn on Philo, but hold on for a bit... We want to know if there are more AI out there. If so we can trade Philo for the world in tech

Added Thought... Ankwor KWATs... No more GPs, Cats. we need to conquer the world.

I believe from trade chart that Isabella has two stone quarries in operation already.

1 Quary and 1 under madrid.

HAs? I allready spotted Spears... HAs are gone and done with... only way is Axe', Sword and Cats.

EDIT: Geez I just realized it's conquest so we will have to go after Bismarck eventually.

Yep, but we keep him for (near) last to keep the door open for troops to float in

 

[LuvToBuild]

My thinking with Angkor Wat is that we don't have a lot of things to build in Kyoto and putting Angkor there would allow us to run three priest specialists once the happy cap is increased, even without a religion. That would give us 6 for building other things when they are needed. Even though Izzy has stone, she may be spending her on an army right now rather than investing in Angkor. Keeping her busy at Cordoba will push her towards military production and away from building wonders. Of course Bismarck or someone else might get it but if nothing else it would be some to use for pumping up research. If you guys would rather have Kyoto working on other things, that's the route I'll go. That was just an idea that came to me and seemed like it might be possible to accomplish.

 

[bobrath]

I'm actually fairly enchanted with the idea of 1) using Bismark as a bridge to any other AIs he's next to and 2) using massive cats out of our island trios to walk over said AIs.

We do need to remember a couple key points tho 1) Bismark will be more friendly with those other AIs (possibly) and 2) with the aggresive AI bit set, that makes him more likely to close borders and declare on us. So when we land our attack force, make sure its basically complete before we declare on the other AI.

Continuing the aggresive sea feline thoughts (and assuming there is another AI adjacent), we need to be careful about razing vs keeping since Bismark will quickly fill any city sites behind us AND have the land based edge on our upcoming war with him. Perhaps we raize the good cities and gift the crappy ones to him to keep him happy?

 

[Cosmichail]

Code of Law => CS???

definitely a duh moment...

Added Thought... Ankwor KWATs... No more GPs, Cats. we need to conquer the world

I have another expression for angkor wat but it wouldn't be appropiate to post it. I agree that we should scout new lands and find other civs so Kyoto could build some scouts but I still like the Angkor wat idea as that will help through the entire empire. (although Osaka will be running scientists)

All that whipping in Kyoto for cats makes sense just spell it out when I play as all that whipping gives me a headache. (ouch)

Also concur we should leave Izzy some crappy towns extort techs once she is beaten a bit. I would take that small force and raze Toledo just for some coin. Barcelona might have strong defenses but when I passed by there she had 1 archer defending it. I doubt that's the case now but if it is still like that an easy take for our small force.

 

[pigswill]

This ain't the time to be planning on building wonders anywhere. Granary in Kyoto makes sense, maybe another galley. OB with Bismark for some recon definitely. Maybe hold off tech trading until we've got (or lost) Glib and checked out his continent. Next 15 turns or so likely to be building up for war in osakaland so lets look at strategy again after next set.

 

[bobrath]

sounds good. So less talky more play!

 

[namliaM]

This ain't the time to be planning on building wonders anywhere.

Hail Pigswill... (Is that Pig Swill or Pigs will?)
Lets stop with the possy footy stuff and get going on military allready (both on FKaS and in BT !

Granary in Kyoto makes sense, maybe another galley. OB with Bismark for some recon definitely. Maybe hold off tech trading until we've got (or lost) Glib and checked out his continent. Next 15 turns or so likely to be building up for war in osakaland so lets look at strategy again after next set.

A settler and a scout (maybe 2) !! and another Galley (yes) to transport those... the other Galleys should go Civ hunting...

Then we need 2 Workboats pretty soon-ish for them 2 Whales. Whip a Courthouse and a Lighthouse in NARA add a Granary and a Barracks!! ! ! ! And start whipping them Cats.
A barracks in Edo and Kyoto, add a granary in both? and Cats cats CATS !