SGOTM 02 - VQ Black

bobrath · Sep 8, 2006

Sorry that I didn't read your post before playing cosmic! No tech trading, tho I asked for PP "as a favor for a friend" from every AI except Mansa - EVERY turn. No deal. I made a demand to Mansa for a tech and he denied us despite having only 3 cities - its going to be a pleasure to wipe him out.

We do have Steel and are "working" on nationalism. As soon as we got steel, I turned research to 0 (+286gpt) so we could upgrade some cats, sams, and other units. Treasury is only at ~500g. Why so low? 2 turns of anarchy will do that to you! We're now a Theocracy (still Jewish). Upkeep went from 32gpt to 36gpt.

Yes, the Globe was completed, and all the remaining cats were shipped over. I missed a :whipped:

or two when I forgot we could basically whip every other turn in Kyoto. Sorry bout that.

Our peace treaty with Hatty expired, but no real moves yet.

I checked the trade screens every turn (in trying to beg for PP) and Mao researched chemistry on my very first turn! I watched and waited for any sign of it spreading... 9 turns later, only Mao has Chemistry. If the next player wants to give up this military tech - well I'll leave it to them and the group.

In turn 0 I got OB with Hatty, did spice for wheat, and sheep for 6pt. Next turn, she got all icky with me and we're now her worst enemy. NO worries, we still have all the deals still in place.
I took away the copper for 6gpt from Mao and did clam for 7gpt instead.
Throughout my turns I made sure to grab any extra gpt that came available with trading partners. Roughly an increase of 10gpt resulted.

In turn 6, Memphis came out of revolt and popped its borders right away. Same turn, Elephantine popped its borders. We had 3 starving citizens in Memphis and a barracks would take 2 to whip. Easy math!

I made sure both cities in ringworld still have enough bodies to hold off an opportunistic Hatty, but here's what I've left set up. ALL military units shown still have movement points left (along with some frigates off the shore of Kyoto). Rather then declaring war on my last turn, I've left that choice (and opportunity) for the next player. Here's what I went and done:

The current "war" front:

A much more up front image:

The next line of Bismark's defenses (much more scary):

The rest of his cities have about 4 units (3 defenders and one cat). Kumba Salle has another mini stack in it.

Hatty has around 5-6 units in her nearby cities. So where does that leave us?

Those units shown in our two massive stacks can:
A) Declare on Bismark, take Hun right away, Take Essen next turn (after holding off against a counter from the stack in Berlin) and then combine to take out Berlin. Depending on casualtes, they could swing south to finish off Cologne and then Frankfurt. Our losses will occur mainly to the initial counater attack from Berlin and the Kumba mini-stack and much more heavily on the sea - Bizmark is all over the ocean.
B) move all the units into german territory (since they are camped in Egyptian right now) and declare war (again) on Hatty in the next turn. Stack 1 can easily take Heliopolis, while stack 2 can easily take Mycenian. I don't doubt she's going to come after us sooner rather then later - and she's building up stacks. But she has minimal sea forces, and we have a couple galleons loaded up and en route right now to make her life worse.

Either one will work. Hatty (to me) is slightly more a threat *right now* then Bismark. We can worker swipe either of them easily. So I'm passing off 9.5 turns of play. The next player better be ready to take lots of screenshots of city captures!!!

Oh and one kinda suprising thing. There are still no DPs out there. We're free to declare on anyone we want to.

Spoiler :

The Savehttp://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm2/VQ_Black_SG002_AD1625_01.Civ4SavedGame

bobrath · Sep 8, 2006

oh btw, the Sistine chapel is in Memphis too... so any city we capture can pop its borders *very* fast if we just run a bunch of specialists at the start.

pigswill · Sep 8, 2006

Bismark don't look scary. Still makes sense to take out Hatty first, go north then south then talk about either Biz or Mao but they're a couple of sets away.

Cosmichail · Sep 8, 2006

I agree take out Hatty first. Don't waste that tech by letting Mao spread it around. The tech is out now no sense in not using it to our advantage. We could get three techs for it but I understand why some want to hold on. Since we are going to need upgrades for the cats and science will be off for a while why not advance this way. It won't be long before everybody has it. Again we won't rule the world with grens/sams/or even cannons we must keep a modern military (upgraded) to make our taking cities go faster.

We don't have the monopoly on it anymore and with Nationalism really could pump out units from Kyoto. If anything just trade with Kublai he is no threat to us. I think using Bismarck would be good. Here's why: He has quite a stack there and why not let him waste it on Hatty. Then when we are ready we can take him easier.

Why let him build up as we take Hatty or take Bismarck and let another AI get stronger.

Man it's kind of frustrating when you can't get agreement on anything from you NamliaM. The Bismarck is an idea as well as trading. I was offering the possibities to be considered if they hadn't been considered. Personally I wouldn't hold on to a tech that's out and take advantage of it. Those cities in the south won't do well against Bismarck's culture there. War will weaken him and that's what we need. I was surprised to see he would go to war for us and I would much rather see us finish Hatty off and then go after Mao who is teching away but doesn't have a city that should be producing that. If he is teching hard it means his military is weak so take advantage of that too.

You say tech down well let's go after the guy teching the fastest after Hatty.

EDIT: Going to nationalism might not be a good idea losing bureaucracy I think but will get us closer to Military tradition.

namliaM · Sep 8, 2006

We agree sometimes... Well trading Chemistry is "against my religion" but since its out there...

Lets see if Bismark is willing to waste some units on someone (other than hatty) Send his units West while we get hatty and stab him right in the east (both actual and proverbial back).

As nationalism is right on the path to MT, trading for it may make sence... getting any tech in addition is a bonus... But I wont be gunning for Education... When are we going to take time to build a Uni?

Playing in a couple of minutes... Lets see turns in an SG go how again?? :confused:

*grabs pen and paper*

Edit: I have played but took way longer than I expected and I am all but falling a sleep right now...

Spoiler For who doesnt want to know :

bobrath · Sep 8, 2006

BTW, don't think of trading for education as something we're going to use the tech for Univs or anything else. Think of it as a tech we could trade to others OR as something that opens up other techs for us to receive/research.

When I completed Steel, I had only four choices (from memory) avail to research: Education, Printing Press, Divine Right, and Nationlism. We have 600 some beakers into Nat right now.

If we do trade Chemistry away.. get as much as we can for it from KK. Then wait one turn and trade it the rest of the way. Why? So that the techs beyond Edu/PP/DR/Nat are available to us in trade. You can't double jump in one turn on traded techs. This is a bit risky, since KK could trade chemistry out from under us so balance getting what we *need* versus what we might be able to get in trade in the next turn that would provide greater benefit then the first tier techs.

Edit:
PP opens up Sci Meth and Replacable Parts (!!)
Nothing from DR
Edu opens up Liberalism and Economics
Nat opens up MT and Constitution
RP opens up Rifling (!!)

So given that, after we get Nationalism in trade, PP is a great tier 1 to get. That will open up RP for research/trading and we can possibly trade for MT or even Rifling (which Mao has)

Has anyone seen that Liberalism has been discovered yet?

Cosmichail · Sep 8, 2006

Sorry NamliaM you're right we agree sometimes. LOL

I just think Bismarck against Hatty will also mean no tech trading between the two for a while. That should slow tech advancement too. Although you could beat Hatty with a bat and shortly thereafter she's trading again. That's also what I meant (like Bob said) look at it as another tech to trade and move us along without exhausting our finances. I agree building a university won't be a priorty. (Hey we agree) and would rather see Osaka keep building military. I say we war as much as possible and get the AI's warring too which only weakens them. Who knows maybe KK will go after HC.

Has anyone seen that Liberalism has been discovered yet?

I didn't notice it yet nor any mention of it but I bet Mao isn't far off.

bobrath · Sep 8, 2006

Mao did "waste" turns researching Chemistry so he's not beelining to it tho. Interesting that the AIs haven't hit it yet.

Anyway, HC is the big mover on the score board right now. As we were busy beating Hatty down, he jumped past her and Bizmarkee. Makes me want o hurt him worse!

Looking forward to Namliam's turns. I'm not going anywhere this weekend so no more hovering over the keyboard refreshing!

namliaM · Sep 9, 2006

bobrath said:
Has anyone seen that Liberalism has been discovered yet?

Just a quick visit to the board early in the morning... No log yet sorry...

Mao used Liberalism IIRC for Astro...

bobrath · Sep 9, 2006

BTW, there's a spoiler thread now opened up (see maint thread for link). We more then qualify for posting into it (all our rivals are known). So if LuvToBuild is up for an initial spoiler entry, I'm all for him putting one up.

Looking forward to your eventual report namliam!

namliaM · Sep 9, 2006

Despite not beeing a fan of this idea... I find I can trade for Chemistry...
HC
Printing Press (PP) + World map (WM) + 250g
Nationalism (Nat) + WM + 250g
Education (Ed) + 90g

Bismark
Nat is redded out
PP + WM + 30g
Ed + WM + 10g

KK
Nat + WM + 40g
Ed + WM + 10g
PP + WM + 40g

Mao and Hatty both have Chemistry, I am not going to trade away Steel to either of them !

First I move some units around (The south most units go SE, closest to Mycenian. The northern units go East towards Memphis) and declare war on Hatty and go visit Bismark to see what he is willing to do with war now...
Chem for War with Hatty and Devine Right (Both wonders allready build) ....
Not really something I am aiming for.... Tho DR is appearently a tradable (tho cheap) tech.
I wind up getting Bismarck into war and trade Ivory for Stone to counter the WW a little.
I ask the cheapskate for 10g but .... I press him to hard :crazyeye:

Next up is HC, trading for Nationalism + WM + 250g

Thinking I would come back the next turn to see if I can trade anything beyond PP or Nationalism. However I forget to check. :blush:

So the next person should check if there is anything left to trade Chemistry for....

On the inner turn 1 Cavalry suicides onto memphis... Nothing to speak of ...

1628 (1) I consider starting to build the Taj Mahal, which appearently hasnt been build yet ?? I deside not to persue this...
We pop a GP from Madrid, a Priest... We are short a Shrine, but I think we wont be building any Missionaries any time soon to get the shrine to 5gpt.
So I deside to merge the Priest to Osaka for the extra hammer and the 5gpt.

1631 (2) Bismark has shown up at Mycenian with a small stack and some Knights in reserve... I deside to gamble that Bismark is going to fail...
He has 2 units in reserve... But ... Yeah its a gamble... and it doesnt pay off.... Bismarck takes the city with 1 unit to spare

1637 (4) The battle for Heliopolis...
I throw 6 suicide cats against the city without a single withdraw. Add 2 more withdrawals (total 8 cats)
Combat(C) 2 Pinch (P) Gren
City raider (CR) 2 Gren
CR2 Sam (3 of them)
Cr1 Sam
two CR2 Cats
All of which win without much problems all with high % to win. However we have 1 or 2 movable units left and can see some Cavs "on the horizon", No Germans within reach....
Therefor I leave the city to Hatty for this turn

On the Innerturn we suffer some Colatoral damage near Alexandria...
Next turn 1640 (5) sure enough some Cavs reinforced Heliopolis. Two Cr1 cats withdraw after sending in some rocks.
A Cr2 Gren, C2P Gren and a CR2 Sam clean up the left overs and take Heliopolis. The Samurai actually has a 100.1% chance of winning

Heliopolis is stripped of all buildings

ALL

Checking Osaka, WW is not up to 9 unhappy. I up culture to 20% to counter unhappiness and make the citizens productive again.

The innerturn a counter attack is send to Heliopolis... a Catapult (withdraw) and a Cav (withdraw), both crossing the river.
also some guy name Livy makes some kind of list.

1643 (6) The cav is killed while the cat is left alone... (dont want to risk any units out in the open for 1 measly cat)
In Alexandria I send in 5 suicide catapults of which numbers 1, 2 and 5 withdraw.
two C CR2 Grens, a C3 CR Gren follows up and three C CR Sams clean up the mess. We take Alexandria with the loss of 2 cats.

While attacking Alexandria and Heliopolis, Thebes and Byblos are beeing bombed as you can see.

After the seige of Alexandria and Heliopolis, units start marching on the remaining 3 cities of Hatty. Byblos and Thebes have allready been bombed to 0% and Pi-Ramesess can be bombed to 0% in 1 turn with the Cats we have in the area.
Thus a few turns pass to 1652 (9) as units arive at Byblos and Pi-Rameses.
During those turns I trade Clams for Spices with Bismarck

In 1652, Pi-Ramesses is razed after bombing to 0% and attacks by a C2CR2 Gren, a C CR Gren and a C CR2 Sam.
Byblos is defended a bit better even after having it to near 0% by Frigate(s).
We lose a C CR Gren vs a Cavalry, but the subsequent C P Cren, C CR Sam, C CR2 Sam and finaly a Knight win.
We capture Byblos, I spend some time pondering... Do we keep Byblos and build it, or Raze it... ??? I think rebuilding a full city will take to long for it to be of real use.
So I end up razing it.

1655 I up culture to 30% to fight the rize in WW and that concludes my set.

namliaM · Sep 9, 2006

This is what is left of Egypt.... Thebes ... the last city on the mainland...

In teal are 3 Frigates I parked in "friendly" lands to save some GPT and close enough to take out any defence... Bismarck as you can see is also "on the scene"

And back on Hokkaido, Giza... 2 Frigates are on the way there to start bombing it...

Our current units...

And our current minimap

The save you can get from here

Spoiler Autolog :

namliaM · Sep 9, 2006

The spoiler caused me to go over the character limit.... So here is the last part of the autolog

Spoiler 2nd part autolog > 1646 :

Cosmichail · Sep 9, 2006

I am not going to trade away Steel to either of them

Totally agree.

That looked like a lot of work NamliaM and that should make me up next so I will take my time to absorb where we are at and play probably tomorrow sometime. Again NamliaM that is a great set and bringing Bismarck in I think was a good idea to distract Hatty so we can finish her off. I will also check what else we can get for Chemistry.

bobrath · Sep 10, 2006

Be sure to pillage *any* improvement (aside from roads) that lie outside our captured cities BFC. Its free cash, but more importantly we deny the free work to newly founded cities by other AIs.

namliaM · Sep 10, 2006

Oh I forget... Mao finished the Taj Mahal in 1643 ( you can see it on the screeny but I didnt highlight it)....

This means the techleader is just running away further.... Maybe we should tackle Mao first, after that we can do a 2 front war... one in the south and one in the north....

Bismarck is heavy on the boats at the moment... Make sure to have some frigates in BT before declaring on him.

Edit: I didnt take time to pillage *anything*.... My orders were: "Capture and Raze as many cities as possible..."
Sorry 4 cities was max...

bobrath · Sep 10, 2006

I agree that we can safely leave bismark at our back. The mutual struggle bonus should keep the aggresive bit in check. Not to say leave our borders too lightly defended of course!

The real downside to leaving Germany alone is that delays getting Versailles for quite a while.

One note about Mao, he's got enough spread out cities that truly eliminating him will be a bit tougher - requiring more naval forays. If we do knock him down to almost nothing, it should be reasonably cheap to pay another AI to wipe him out tho.

So lets get our forces up onto Mao ASAP before he can get two levels of tech ahead of us. He hasn't been trading techs out, but the other AIs will be easier to pick off with Mao "contained".

pigswill · Sep 10, 2006

In principle we shuld be able to run two armies:existing army vs mao (whipped replacements from remaining chinese cities) and a brand new army from hokkiado and whipped egyptian cities that can start on Bismark and they just follow the ring round till they meet in Mali.
Given that we've basically ignored research throughout the game there's no point keeping bureaucracy so switch to feudalism asap.

namliaM · Sep 10, 2006

Keeping Burocracy is actually KEY for 2 reasons:
1) 50% boost in production
2) Money for Sam => Gren upgrades...

Cosmichail · Sep 10, 2006

I agree switching away from bureaucracy would hurt financially and loose another turn to anarchy. BURN BABY BURN BURN IT ALLL MOHAHAHAHAHA
(Ok I will keep Thebes but please can I burn everything else)
Sorry evil guy getting carried away and just love war.........
Playing now and posting later this afternoon

Namliam taking 4 cities is nothing to sneeze at so don't be sorry.

So Mao is next good choice guys I like having Bizzy at my back he's a good ally usually. Too bad we have to stab him in the back. OUCH.....
That's ok though we Xenophobes and must cleanse the world.

SGOTM 02 - VQ Black

Emperor

Emperor

fly (one day)

Dark Lord of The Sith

Deity

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Deity

Emperor

Deity

Deity

Deity

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Deity

Emperor

fly (one day)

Deity

Dark Lord of The Sith

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