SGOTM 02 - VQ Black

[Cosmichail]

Re: Ratpack earlier on you said that we were equal to them in score and I was saying all along they are ahead. (not that it means anything to me)

We can do both keep science moving along and war. I even suggested we start building samurais in Osaka whilst we wait for Astronomy. My point is that we have 3 libraries supporting science wise and 1 market commerce wise. If anything BT could use the FP but hey it doesn't matter. Start building troops and watch what happens when you start conquering. Everytime you take a city the gpt drops by 10. Sure you get 100 gold for every city conquered but again we have no army to speak of to even consider that. We don't have the ships to move the troops yet. We are talking about Berlin like we have it already. We won't take them all in one set simply because at some point the economy will crash. I am not for science and commerce alone but a balance of everything. War/science/commerce go hand in hand to keeping the battle going. I am not talking about getting ahead of the AI tech wise but simply point out that I have done it in my own games/SG's by aggressive trading/picking techs that the AI doesn't have/and using pointy stick. We really aren't that far behind yet but will fall behind as we war and I am sure everybody has experienced this during war time. You weaken one AI and the other just gets stronger whilst you are warring. Quite often in the middle of battle too they also upgrade from like maces to grens. Then all of sudden up against rifles. Hatty is typically one that doesn't have a strong military but grows like a weed. I think the two biggest dangers is the Bismarck/Mao right now.

So if we feel we should go for war right now and just build units then we should only take one city and raze the rest. We won't be able to afford holding more than 4-5 cities at the most. (not even) We don't have guilds yet and we don't have engineering yet and we have no real techs for trading and I suspect as LuvtoBuild says we might get one tech for Astronomy maybe two.

I don't think we can take on the whole ring with just Samurais/cats/knight/pikes which having done conquest numerous times we might finish in the 1800's. We could finish earlier but at some point we are going to be facing rifles/cannons soon. (At some point having cavalry makes a big difference too but NamliaM feels the war will be over before we get there. I disagree as the AI may throw us curves along the way such as Defensive pacts/unexpected war or attack on our land) Our we going to leave Hokkaido defenseless with a one lbm in each city?

Again I am not talking about this being a tech game but understand it is a war game and have in my own games had a super science city/GP farm/ and a super production city and warred like crazy. I personally don't use whipping a lot as I would rather pop GP's for science advancement. It is only in the 1300's now and looking at Hatty she is a good target. Again we don't have knights or pikes so taking her on will have to wait until we build an army of some sort. Let's get those experienced Samurais ready to be moved and if the rest of team wants to go ahead and screw infrastructure completely and just build units let's go for it. To be honest I am tired of trying to get my point across and it seems that everything is questioned and put down. In the end I think Bob you should make the decisions and offer the input as to how we will proceed and I would go by that.

I pointed out we have 5 or 6 cities that can build military and (even our super science city) and get advancements by having one GP farm. I love killing them all it's my favourite past time. But I would prefer to have some backing there for us. Again we lack the military techs we need. How about theology. How were you intending to get those techs through point stick with WHAT army? 3 libraries and 1 market will never get us even the ability to trade down the road for needed techs which IMO are:

1. Guilds
2. Engineering (better movement too)
3 Theology
4. Military tradition/Nationhood

Of course theology won't do us any good being Jewish. So at some point we will need our own religion again so we can have highly experienced Sams. Vassalage is not a consideration since we will loose 50% of our commerce in Osaka which will only leave us the ability to build maybe 15 units.

The last SGOTM01 I watched team one for a while before watching VQ. They started with a strong science/commerce base and were able to win well ahead of VQ.

This will be the last time I bring my point up again as you know how I feel. We have a chance to make it better for the long haul but I say just to see what happens let's start building those units/galleons and see what techs we can get with astronomy. I have used Samurais against rifles in another SG (prince level) and they can take them on but need lots and lots of cats.

So war it is I take it. After astronomy zero the science and just build units until we have a little extra gpt maybe 5 or so and then go for it.

Also regarding that GS being able to offer paper. We could use that tech for trading or as an addition to Astronomy to get what we need. Building an academy in Madrid without any enhancements isn't going to do us any good and getting the needed techs will. We will never get the chance to build universities/oxford as we simply will never have the science to do it.

I will say it again 3 libraries for the entire empire and one market. Not much to lean on I would say. (remember war weariness will happen too then what will happen to our economy) Are we truly considering everything?

EDIT: I agree Bob BT is extremely vulnerable right now. CATS make lousy defenders and up against Knights archers aren't much good.

2nd EDIT: about the 5 beakers things gaining 1 beaker. Ye who plans for cities that you haven't conquered yet. I say only this now yes but when it grows, mature, changes considerably. Let us plan for today and take it turn by turn rather oh we'll put the FP in Berlin and look it Munich has this and that is crap etc etc. You are so busy planning a hypothetical rather than dealing with the realtime need. Our total science output for the empire is probably just over 100 something. One city should be doing that by now. We should have Education/Liberalism/paper/music all heavy trading techs and would be sending over galleons by now instead of whipping cats that do nothing. Kyoto could have served another purpose as outlined by Pigswill (pop cap like 11 now just over 6). Great commerce/science too but we left that to be your whipping boy. Whipping keeps pop low (main too yes) but pop=power of science/commerce=Power of science or just commerce=many many units. We just conquered Spain and it will begin producing whatever we choose it to.
TO BE HONEST......I never whip.....(only when it's absolutely necessary such as unhappy pop/newly conquered city to get theater quick and very little else). I just don't like it and am a player that likes to have many, many 10 pop plus cities. We still have that ability but I can't convince anyone different and am just going along with it. (I think Pigswill knows where I am coming from and Eektor to as well as Bob and LuvtoBuild. not whipping science/commerce/war)

I would have prefered to play in the last GOTM as had I known this was a "whipping" game probably would not have joined. I should have guessed though with all those sea resources. It's not my kind of game to be honest. Just one of those things with me, honour and all. I tend to be philosophical about such things and even in gameplay feel it demeans people and in a strange way makes it ok all that which has been done in the past such as slavery. I guess I just believe in the uber mensch capable of greater things. NamliaM made a great choice of city settlement from their we part ways. Nothing personal but just don't agree with the approach. We are stunted right now recovering from a war lacking very much in commerce which if anything (leave science out) is what you need for WAR.

 

[Cosmichail]

Just looked at the save and I had to laugh.

LuvtoBuild in the spirit of Lord Vader you say one thing but do another. I like that, duplicitious is a good quality.

You say war but when I look around I see Courthouses/markets/libraries/theaters/ which is exactly what we need. Keep up the good work my apprentice you have served the empire well.

One does not build a empire without any foundation. Holland was a world power once because it had the Oost Indische compagnie. Money = power.

 

[bobrath]

Actually.... he did talk all about the builds he made (including the courthouse he acknowledges he shouldn't have built!)

I'm looking forward to Eektor's turns now.

side note: Oost Indische compagnie = West Indies Company I assume.

 

[LuvToBuild]

Can we stop comparing to the meta-game graphs please? There's no way to get the "real" story behind the numbers until we finish our game and go read the other threads. Lets play THIS game to the best of our abilities instead of trying to play what we think some other team is playing. Thanks.

I have to respectfully disagree. We do need to be paying attention to our performance compared to the others. This is our only way of gauging how soon we need to be going on a serious warpath. It is clear to namliaM and I that the Rats have already been doing that and will be way ahead of us if we don't get busy ourselves pretty soon. I understand the desire to play a fun game but the point of this SG is to compete with the other teams and not just the AI. We could play a slower paced conquest game and win in the late 1800's but we're not going to place very well in the competition. I suppose we could show off our wooden spoons though if that's what we really want to do.

My biggest fear from those screen shots is that Thebes could very quickly have six knights invading one of our BT islands - one to two turns into any war. Not to mention they would pillage all of our nets. It does look like we are near parity in military techs at this *very* moment. I just wonder if we have the naval forces to allow the BT to actually ship units to the main ring AND keep our food resources hooked up so that we can keep the whip going.

Quite honestly I think that'd be a good thing. 2 Galleons + 6 Knights + 0 Catapults + 0 Frigates = disaster for her. No bombarding of cultural defense. Vulnerability to attack by the galleons we just unloaded on her shoreline. Assuming the knights unload, they would suffer terrible losses conducting amphibious assault on hill cities against fortified LBMs and maybe a pikeman. Not too mention she would not have them on the mainland to counterattack our main force.

As far as the navy in BT goes, we should always maintain at least 4-6 galleons in BT for transportation and resource protection. Galleons only cost slightly more than a samurai so we can whip them just as fast. We don't really need a lot and we can replace losses fairly quickly. With Chemistry, we can gain frigates and have a better defense.

Further Thoughts:

Sorry Cosmichail, I luv you bro but we can achieve tech parity by warring just as easily (perhaps more easily) than trying to grow and nurture Hokkaido. We do this by dragging them down and eventually sending them into the stone age from an improvement / population / number of cities stand point. This hurts all their buddies too as namliaM points out. Without Hatty, Mao and Bizzy will have to research techs on their own or trade with each other. Since I think they will both tend to research the same techs, they will probably have less to trade. Take one of them out next and you leave the other one to fend for himself as the tech leader. Huayna catches up, BAM hit him and he's reeling.

I lean towards hitting Hatty first because I feel like she is the real tech leader and she is more likely to be researching techs Bizzy and Mao aren't researching. She is also more inclined to have a smaller army because she builds defensively and not so much offensively. We don't need to be concentrating on hitting MM anymore. Let somebody else do it and if he's still around later, then we just mop him up. Timbuktu no longer has strategic value. Iron and horses will come from Hokkaido soon.

Most of my time this last turnset was spent trying to rush in some infrastruture while waiting for Astronomy. Once we get Astronomy though, we can get more serious about building an army and navy, especially in Kyoto. The sooner the better, although we should wait for the HE and Globe. I also suggest maybe switching all of our scientist specialists to merchant specialists where possible. We need gold to support our army and it gives us more flexibility. Consider this hypothetical situation: 2 scientists equals 7 beakers (account for library) and 2 merchants equals 7 gold (account for market). The 6 gold allows you to run 10% higher research by offsetting higher costs. The extra 10% for 100 beakers empire wide equals 10 beakers. Which is better? Or you maintain the same rate and support more units without going in the hole. Either way, I think it's probably better than the scientists. Plus, a GM might get us a good commerce tech (Banking / Corporation) or could be merged for further increasing our gpt.

I know we fear hitting a brick wall and seeing our forces whittled down while losing the tech race and having our economy collapse. However, with some proper war planning we don't need to worry so much about this problem. Hatty has 11 visible cities right now but only 3 are inland. We can move quickly around her coast and raze or capture 8 cities, seriously damaging her ability to compete. The same could be applied to the others. We don't have to engage ourselves in a long slow moving land battle and we don't have to win the war by keeping cities. In fact, we don't want to (can't win a domination victory by accident) and can't afford to keep very many. Only top quality cities of particular importance (i.e. a shrine or wonder city, super commerce or production capacity plus a decent pop size). Memphis is a good example. One thing to remember. There are only certain wonders and even shrines that are of use to us. A shrine with very little religion spread (Islam in Elephantine) requires us to spread the religion, something that would be hard to do with closed borders and war with our neighbors. A holy city with no shrine has even less value unless the religion has been spread far and wide and we can get a Great Prophet popped.

Key cities that I see:

Memphis for Temple of Solomon and Sistine Chapel (nice addition for the treasury plus excellent spying if we stay in Judaism)
Mycenian for Versailles (decreased maintenance in BT and Egyptian/German cities we decide to keep. Frees up FP for elsewhere, Cuzco perhaps)
Cologne for Angkor Wat (increased production for priests. could be used to help production in Barcelona and Madrid by setting up priests. better than engineers, two hammers and a gold)
Cuzco for the Pyramids (allows Police State and Representation without needing two key techs we will probably never get)
Karakorum for the Buddhist shrine (another good spy city when switched to Buddhism plus more gold for the coffers)

There may be others that have value due to high production and or commerce. Some of the capitals like Berlin and Thebes might be useful. Most cities should be razed in my opinion. It keeps us from having to maintain garrisons and suffer the extra city maintenance. We can keep up a good warfront just from our own cities and whipping Kyoto for replacement units. The shrine cities will support the army and navy. We really don't need more production and commerce cities on the ring.

 

[bobrath]

I guess my point was that we can't really know what the score/power/cultural numbers indicate. ESPECIALLY given this map - from this point forward how can we say that other Japans hit Hatty, HC, or any other AI first? I understand that we're in a competition, but part of what I enjoyed about the last SGOTM with the VQ group was our style of play which was much more "lets get it done". Sure it turns out we ended up middle of the road, but I don't think anyone would argue we didn't have an enjoyable thread (and game).

If the group is all for war, great lets do that. I already had intentions of leaving Namliam set up for whichever invasion he wanted.

Regarding which cities to keep, I'd suggest that the Civ signage be used to mark them ahead of time. It will be much superior to trying to remember names. Also, rather then changing our own city names... just drop a sign on them. It doesn't interupt the AI naming choices and is a very obvious signal of intent.

6 knights amphib landing on a BT city defended by a lbm and maybe and archer.... My gut says that's a risky proposition. Sure a pike renders it much different, but I don't want to push the RNG god too much. One bad roll and we lose one of our key cities in the invasion triad.

 

[namliaM]

First reaction to the set...
Watch the whip (I know I am shouting WHIP WHIP) but whipping madrid twice inside 6 turns is just a little to much.... And a lib.... WHY??? WHY a lib??

Joining the GS to Osaka is probably the best thing to do... It will net us 6 for the Scientist + 85% of Osaka = 9 beakers.

Crap on the theatres and Crap on not whipping Kyoto (but for 1 time )
Whip Whip Whip it ! ! ! It is (near) our only means of production. Produce Cats like crazy and overflow into HE or Globe... If we had done so from and throughout Pigswill's turns thru now we would have finished Both HE and the Market by now... All we have now is the Market, and that is due to the whip too....

Second reaction...
Sounds like some solid builder turns... Nice going on trying to utilize the whip...

Re: Comparing our game to Rat pack... OK yes... but I feel like a broken record sometimes.....

While we are doing that, we can be building cats for offense (I should have done that instead of the LBM, hindsight is 20/20) and putting the overflow into HE and the Globe.

Is this my echo???

Bottom line: I hate to admit it but namliaM has been right

Uhm? ? ? Wow...

However, it's never going to be a really good production city so why waste our time trying to make it into one? It COULD, however, be a really good commerce city given enough time

Time is one thing we dont have... and/or need.
*Broken record mode*
We have all the techs we need. Samurais, Catapults, Crossbows/LBs... We need no more all else is making it easier.
Once we start taking out some AI the tech pace will start to slow, cause they cannot trade anymore.
We dont need advanced techs, we just need Catapults and lots of them. And offcourse Samurais from Kyoto (lots of them too )
Samurais and Catapults can face down Grenies... Granted it aint pretty but it works.
Getting a tech lead in this game, is simply not going to happen (anymore). Lets get to whipping in Kyoto and spamming Catapults elsewhere.
*end broken record*

Some of my humble ideas about cities...

Madrid has 1 cottage and 2 villages and can work (on max pop) 9 coastal tiles. 3 Towns (in resp 5, 15 and 105 turns) * 4 + 9*2 = 12 + 18 = 30 commerce... The rest of the tiles are hammer/food tiles. I would keep the commerce from Madrid for now (10-20 turns?) to boost economy a little... dont build any Lib/Market there.... Then convert the Cottages to Workshops and max out the hammers asap.

Cordoba is a logical Commerce city. Due to the shrine (no Taoist shrine yet what was Bella thinking? AND where is the next Priest comming from??) it will most likely get both a Bank (if ever) and a Grocer (Definatly) allready. It doesnt have enough food to sustain Workshops... and Cottages just go well with the Bank and Grocer we are allready planning on building there.
Fire that Engineer there, cottage up them Grasses and use what little production we have to work to a "whippable" amount of hammers for anything we need... Whippable = 45 * x + 1 meaning anything with 46, 91, 136 hammers left is whippable for a bonus of 37 hammers overflow. Stop working those plains cottages and start on the Grass (GROW) Also it needs Market, Harbor and Lib in that order (maybe forget about the Lib) ASAP.

Tokyo, quit and destroy those cottages (eventually) farm up the place and make Workshops to eat up the surplus food. Make it a production beast. We cannot build Lumbermills till Replaceble parts (which we are never going to research) so destroy those forrests... We need the hammer boost....

Osaka Cottage it up, the one new cottage that the Worker is standing on should be a farm to Irrigate the Rice... Or we have to bring irrigation around the other way... just for that 1 bonus food... But replacing the Cottage is the quickest way and gives +2 food to stimulate using the plains Cottages faster...
All other tiles (forrests including) go Cottage

Barcalone production city, Workshop it all the way (except for the sugar and Rice). And we have food to spare/burn/whip left over... It can have 7 workshops, 14 production (with Guilds) +25% = 17. Not great but atleast something. We dont need another commerce center on Hokkaido

Seville well we dont need more commerce (IMHO) so trade farms with Workshops... get hammers up

Toledo Yeah I know we razed it, Mistake in hind sight... We need to rebuild it... Taking the Sugar from Barca and the Clams, we can Workshop the rest and get some nice hammers out of it.

Fuji why a courthouse? A forge and a Theatre are much more important. Put some hammers into a theatre (20-25 hammers MAX) thats~ 10 turns. By then it should be size 4 working the sheep, wheat and 2 other tiles. Whip the Theatre for 2 pop and start the forge, next a granary (maybe this before the forge? then the courthouse and Units....
Workshops and farms here too..

Oh you get the picture I think, I would have max hammers on Hokkaido except for Cordoba and Osaka...

@Bob, how many (non pillage, but landings) successfull attempts have you seen from the AI? I dont see the knights boarding a ship and launching against BT. I see them going against our stack(s)
We do need some Pillage defens (for Kyoto in particular) I suggest whipping the forge in Kagoshima and starting a Granary... As soon as Astro is in, start Galleons everywhere coastal (Exluding Kyoto this only whips catapults, with the overflow going to Globe)
Galleons are 120 hammers. So with just one or two turn in (91-112 hammers left) (Edo and Kagoshima) can whip one Galleon for 2 pop. So can other cities if we need. But Madrid can produce one in 5 or so turns.... So I dont know if we want/need to kill that much pop to get a few boats out....

 

[bobrath]

I don't usually play archipelago maps, so I haven't had a chance to experience the AIs war choices. I'm being paranoid.

 

[namliaM]

To be honest I am tired of trying to get my point across and it seems that everything is questioned and put down.

I am feeling the same way... We are just on opposite sides of this and I dont think we are going to agree.
Lets atleast agree to that.

Re: holding cities. You forget that the first few (german) cities we keep have major cottages... They will sustain themselves even without courthouses...

You disagree with me on what may happen... The AI may throw us a curve... But what is happening right NOW? No curve, just weak AIs waiting to be killed by our waves of Samurai and Catapults....
We will gain Versailles in Egypt somewhere (edit: it is in Mycenian appearently). FP in Berlin... costs should be very barable to keep all/most of Egypt and Germany.
Egypt too has the shrine for Judaism, that is going to help BIG TIME...

Hokkaido is going to be building (allmost exlusively) reinforcements for the conquering on the mainland (lets make up a name for that too... Something with a C would seem appropriate) If the AI ever do make a landing with all of 3 ?? units (remember the powerfull landing skills of the AI) we should have atleast some force to counter with...

Techs 1, 2 and 3 are needed asap... Going back to this post (I could find a few more if you want) I put down what I thought would be nice techs....:
At what point do we want to stop research? Chemistry? Steel?
Do we need Cavalry and/or Rifles?

Research Goal(s):
- Grenadiers (Guilds (2242) => Gunpowder (2691) => Chemistry(4036) & Engineering (2242) )

1st optional:
- Drafting and +2 for barracks (Nationalism) (4036)

2nd optional:
- Cannons (Steel) (6279)

3rd Optional:
- Knights (Guilds, also in 1st)
- Cavs (MT) (4485)

4th optional:
- Riffles (Riffling) (5382)

Our first goal should be Chemistry.
1) Frigates to protect BT and our galleons
2) Samurais upgrade to Grennies.
3) We can whip a Grennie every 2 turns in Kyoto, let the AI keep up with that !

You/we may certainly add Theo to that list, that is we would either need to
1) Spread Judaism to Hokkaido
2) Convert to Confused & spread it to BT & (atleast) german lands.
to take (real) advantage of it. *offcourse you made this point too*
Tho having +2 xp just in Kyoto may allready be worth it.... as we could make the "imported" units from Hokkaido the sacrificial units and try and keep/promote the ones with more XP from Kyoto.

Thinking along those lines, we have about 60 turns (100 beakers/turn) to Grennies if we can trade for Guilds and Engineering, maybe Guilds and Gunpowder if we dare to gamble...

Re: Whipping & Ethics, I agree slavery and all is not a good thing... In real live that is... Civ was made for whipping, if you are not whipping currently and winning on Monarch... I really sallute you and you could crush Immortal with whipping... Please tell me how you do it... I would play an SG with just you if need be to learn this

Re: MM, Bismark & Hatty, I fear if we go after Hatty first, Bismark may get bought into this war and we have a 2 front war. Which we currently cannot handle...
Which is why I would like to go MM, Bismark, Hatty. This way if Hatty joins Bismark we still have a 1 front war, just a little more opposition. If not its Bye bye bismark just that much more quicker....

Re Kyoto, no waiting for nothing. Whip Catapults and lots of them overflow into Globe... after that overflow into HE... Samurais (for now) should be imported from Hokkaido....
Yes sure Hokkaido could be size 20, yielding 40 commerce sure... with what lux? We would have no bases to make the pop happy, except for MPs which we cannot whip... but have to build (slowly!) and they stand there costing upkeep.

I think I like the idea of Merchants instead of scientists... I will have to think on that tho.... I dont think 10% in Osaka will be 7 beakers... Osaka beeing our primary source of beakers. *something to check*

Isnt Angkwor Wat for that continent only? Is it for your civ? *something to check*
Of the top of my head I dont know where mycena is in relation to Egypt and Germany. As I pointed out there are some nice cities in Germany worth keeping... And getting the FP earlier helps just that little bit... In particular if we do go Germany=> Hatty due to the 2 front threat...
Germany also holds something like 5 happy resources we dont have yet (I posted that a while back too, but cannot seem to find it at this time...)
If we do go South => East => North, we will not be keeping a lot of the later cities (None?). Just a few early ones which we can really use... Like part of germany and A few in Egypt... MM For the launch of our war on Bismark? Details details...

Police state, can we bare the cost? Representation, if we are running a "lot" of priests... may well be worth while...
Whats that one thing with free specialists and no foreign trade routes??? I forget, what Tech is that? I forget too... (and to lazy to check). Could that be worth while? *something to check*

Jumping back to Darth Vader.... (aka Cosmichail) I am said to read that you think this is not your kind of game... and whats more that you feel like your input is not beeing valued... It is, our discussion over the last few pages helped (atleast me) to put some things into perspective I even changed some of my points of view because of it...
I too once was unwilling to whip, for more people = more power. But I eventually found that whipping is a very strong thing (in particular with the bonus currenly in CIV) this by no means makes slavery in real live a good thing... NEVER...
Could you view this as a learning experience, a look on the DARK SIDE so to speak? I really think as a team we should all be having some fun, as playing without your hart in it is just plain... no fun and in the end no good for you and would make me (yes me personally) like this game less...

When the tough get going ... the going gets tough... or something is what they sing. I hope you stay and enjoy yourselve. As I am finding this back and forward stuff quite intreging.... Normaly in VQ we all seem to agree on the general direction, this time not so... quite intresting indeed.. .

edit: a few small changes and correction of typo's

 

[bobrath]

Re: MM, Bismark & Hatty, I fear if we go after Hatty first, Bismark may get bought into this war and we have a 2 front war. Which we currently cannot handle...
Which is why I would like to go MM, Bismark, Hatty. This way if Hatty joins Bismark we still have a 1 front war, just a little more opposition. If not its Bye bye bismark just that much more quicker....

I don't quite understand how Invading Hatty brings us an increased chance of a 2 front war. From my POV, as soon as we step foot on The Ring, we're going to be in a two/three front war. At least with Hatty, we have the advantage of being at one "end" of the ring. Land based forces will only come from any AI from the south. IF we land on MM first... we've got AIs on both sides. Hatty has the most to benefit us (shrines and versailles) and while she may be the tech leader... if we're going to stunt the AI tech party - it makes sense to take out the leader. Why let her continue to run rampant and giving away techs to other AIs if we can drop her?

 

[pigswill]

Score in itself means little - if it showed power that would be more helpful. If we're going to have limited teching then we aint going to have many (any?) new civics -mercantilism with banking (?) may be about it. Techwise after chemistry I'd say steel; drydocks for tougher boats and cannon instead of cats, same tactics but better units.
We've been waiting a couple of sets for astronomy and its about to arrive. While there's been a number of disagreements about direction and strategy (and there still are) we have to play with what we've got which is a number of poorly developed cities, a good UU which will stay useful for a while and generally a better focus on warfare than AI possesses.
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

 

[bobrath]

Eektor..... you got this?

 

[Cosmichail]

At least with Hatty, we have the advantage of being at one "end" of the ring. Land based forces will only come from any AI from the south. IF we land on MM first... we've got AIs on both sides. Hatty has the most to benefit us

Totally agree Bob. Your strategic sense has convinced me that would be the way to attack. We will need some ships to defend BT and many, many, many Sams/Cats until we get Guilds/Engineering. I do say though after looking that is likely since Kublai has it and no Astro/Bismarck no Astro and I believe niether Huyana. We should be able to get 4 new techs incoporating Paper with it. Let's us use that GS for lightbulb since we are moving away from research and to battle.

I agree with LuvtoBuild that (and thanks bro I feel the same way) you can
get tech parity with pointy stick. Give me an army and I will get that pointy stick and please Lots of Sams. I would like to see us get theology too but we would have to switch back to our dominant religion. Vasslage is just not an option so this needs to be discussed. We also will need many ships for both areas Hokkaido/BT. We do need Chemistry too but we are shutting off research so now we prove that theory about pointy stick.

We will definitely need frigates and looking at our army we might have a total of 10 trained soldiers and 9 cats far, far away in a ring of fire. For that is a tricky endeavour tactically speaking. We must keep Hokkaido at our back or end up like The Germans being sandwiched by the Allies/Russians.

Bb what I meant was:

The Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC in Dutch, literally "United East Indies Company") was established on March 20, 1602, when the Estates-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and it was the first company to issue stocks. It remained an important trading concern for almost two centuries, until it became bankrupt and was dissolved in 1798, its possessions and the debt being taken over by the government of the Batavian Republic.

Netherlands richest trade route ever. It made them a world class power in the 17th century.

Ok I am off the kick of research and infrastucture. We will do what we have to do no matter what we say. Let loose the dogs of war and start building a highly trained army. I do like the first 2 strikes. Do the sams have drill??? Probably not. We did use them in a prince game against rifles and pulled it off.

 

[Cosmichail]

I just read your posts NamliaM and say I really enjoyed reading. I like debate and sometimes a difference in approach/understanding can bring people closer together. Like two rams bumping heads. Yes the dark side but that seems to be for me more on inflicting damage on my enemy. I feel strange hurting my own. Perhaps I am not really so dark as such but have something else in common with Lord Vader. Let's say as a sufferer of Rheumatoid Arthrtis just kind of wish I had his cybernetic parts. Plus his deep voice is really cool and I do like the red light sabre. (whole story around those light sabers).

I like the challenge now of taking the world on with just sams/knights/cats/pikes. Sams can be quite invincible when promoted right. I do long for battle mijn goede Nederlandse vriend. Sort of like the last conquest SG I played with conquest with just Cossacks. No siege just horsies took out the entire world by 1814ad like 59000 points I think.

Ok for me a new variant conquer the world with sams. I think those guys are cool man. Cool hat and sword, always had a thing for Shogun and Samurais.

EDIT: Ik heb een zak drop niet gehad in drie weken (dat maakt me "*****y")

 

[LuvToBuild]

Score in itself means little - if it showed power that would be more helpful.

There is a power graph which is what I have been looking at and I assume namliaM is too. Comparing the Ratpacks power graph to ours and then their score graph to ours, tells me they have been building up an army from nearly day one and almost constantly warring and building units. They are only recently starting to match us in culture so they haven't been building a lot of libraries, theatres, or wonders. I'm guessing their recent culture is coming from having captured holy cities and wonders from the AI's

 

[bobrath]

BTW captured wonders do not provide culture...

 

[Cosmichail]

Well that blows.....

 

[bobrath]

pfft. you still get the GPP and the other effects, you just don't get all the "ooohhh its the german Eiffel Tower" effect.

 

[namliaM]

I don't quite understand how Invading Hatty brings us an increased chance of a 2 front war. From my POV, as soon as we step foot on The Ring, we're going to be in a two/three front war. At least with Hatty, we have the advantage of being at one "end" of the ring. Land based forces will only come from any AI from the south. IF we land on MM first... we've got AIs on both sides. Hatty has the most to benefit us (shrines and versailles) and while she may be the tech leader... if we're going to stunt the AI tech party - it makes sense to take out the leader. Why let her continue to run rampant and giving away techs to other AIs if we can drop her?

True true true... But I dont think we will have enough galleons to land a real force near Thebes any time soon. Which means we land in germany, build up a force there and work our way north...
Now if Hatty buys Bismark into the war after we have taken a few cities... Now we have to face the stacks of Bismark comming from the south and try to proceed north...
Offcourse if we have razed/captured a few Egyptian cities and bismark comes to the party we could make peace with Hatty to concentrate on Bismark.
With Hatty or any AI we will probably have 2 fronts, maybe 3... But 1 opponent, thus 1 quantity of troops.
With the double thread we face a 2 front war with 2 oppononent comming from 2 sides, thus double the # of units...

If Hatty Joins Bismark while we attack bismark, we have double the units to face too. But Hatty atleast will be comming thru German lands, so we can keep moving 1 direction.

Re: Lightbulbing the Scientist... Lets hold off. Paper is a realively cheap tech... Lets see if we cannot get engineering + guilds from some cheap a$$ AI, maybe we can get Theo + Guilds or Guilds and Paper... (maybe + gold?)

To inflict damage upon the enemy, one will take damage. One way or another... No war without casualties even a tank facing a spear is not a sure thing

Darth vader had cybernetics?? Uhm... You learn something everyday I guess... didnt see the "first three" (the most recent ones) of the series... so I am somewhat lacking in information appearently...

So and it is then? Lets get globe up and start

 

[bobrath]

I will be skipping Eektor if he doesn't post a got it in the next 12 hours.


Bismark would be coming through Hatty's lands just as much as Hatty would be coming through Bismark's lands. These aren't massive lands we're talking about here in either case. I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill (imo).

Just because we can't start at the very northern tip of Hatty's lands doesn't change much of anything. There's no way we can start an attack on Hatty and with the first city *capture*, not have a large front war. Meaning we have to defend any kept city with more then just a token lbm.

Does anyone know how Bismark's relations with us compare with his relations with Hatty? Is the option to ask Bismark to declare on Hatty redded out? If we're so worried about him jumpin on us first... well consider the possibility (far fetched I know) that we get him to jump on Hatty with us.


Re: lightbulbing Paper:

Great Scientist:
Education
Printing Press
Optics
Paper
Astronomy

Basically it means a GS would lightbulb Optics for us right now, but then would lightbulb Paper which then means he'll lightbulb Education and Printing Press before finally coming to Astronomy (assuming we don't research some other techs that open up other paths).

If we do manage to get Paper in a trade, the GS would then lightbulb Education followed by Printing Press...

 

[pigswill]

Is it worth looking at the mechanics of whipping galleons in Kyoto and overflow into HE/GT? (namliaM seems to have a firm grasp of this)?