SGOTM 03 - Team VQ

namliaM · Jan 12, 2007

Lets see where did I leave things.... Oh yeah...

Can anyone spel O....

Spoiler spelling contest :

This is my log for my set... Like I posted earlier there were a few (to many actually) trades available, so in 1106 (my firsts official turn) I made these trades.

First I sell our map to JC, then I do the trades to pick up more maps. Making our map valuable to JC again

As we learn education I dare not pick Liberalism in fear of victoria beating us to it and I select Astronomy, which I will bulb while researching it. Meanwhile I will lay of the whip for a bit to maximize pop/beaker count!

With my luck in begging from Fredrick fresh in my memory I turn to our good friend Cyrus... but find that I ran out of luck

Mao's pair of HA and Treb makes a move towards Argos, where they meer our Maceman and HA. Our forces make quick work of those 2 and return to heal.

That same year one of our caravels is able to catch a glimps of the defenses in Shanghai, the Chuck I dont like... but the rest is not much, this makes me believe even stronger that we should push. However Mao sends another (invisible, thus superemposed) HA towards us, which is picked up by our pikeman... I love Pikeman vs HA battles

The caravel heads deeper into Mao invested waters and finds the (new) city of Tianjin, heavily defended by a Sword and an Axe.... I am impressed :lol:

and I am starting to think about what Cosmic said.... and what I feel... I really wanted to wait for more reinforcements... but... He looks so weak... Must resist... and play for the team ! Must ... resist...
Notice the Caravel to the South east, I am not going to gamble our medic Caravel on that so he runs back into our territory...

To take my mind of things a little I take a look at the tech situation, things look funny somehow... Victoria and Mansa are WAY ahead of the AI pack, most AI dont have paper or worse and these two have Paper + more (granted I traded Mansa PP) and they both have Guilds too.... Saladin is way out of it eventho he has the monopoly on Devine Right... He is squised up north IIRC right by Mansa and Hathy, it wouldnt be a bad thing if he happened to build Versailles there while we conquer the confused...

*Wait* I have a Caravel heading over to meet America just on the outer edge of (soon to be former) Greece... I will swing that around to Beijing to have a look see! It is only a three turn trip and I can resist the temptation till then *I think*.... I .... must .... Resist ....

With 2 caravels on either side of Alex' territory I sneek a peak into his defenses... :goodjob:

I am really affraid of Alex ! And I allmost declare war on the spot... I ... must ... Resist ... But as I allmost Alt-click Alexanders name I realise I cannot as we recently signed peace...
Mao had send another HA (where are those WEs we were so worried about??) thru Greece towards Athens, but unfortunatly we have a Maceman close by who takes a swing and keels over the HA.

I was carefully moving our attack force allong the tree lines as I press enter to go to 1130, I guess I shouldnt have asked for WEs as one shows up right next to our attack force. Send in the ~~cavalry~~ pikeman. More promotions

For the people really paying real close attention.... 1130 is turn 3 from 1118, our caravel has arrived at Beijing... At first I am shocked to see a CG3 + CG2 LB standing guard, but when I look closer, they are all I worry about. All in all not particularly overwhelming... I find that Mao is ill equiped to deal with us and I stop resisting and start marching on Beijing, this will take still a few turns.

Tokugowa asks us to stop trading with Mansa, which I oblige him in...
Mao meanwhile has brought 2 caravels to Moscow whom attack two of our caravels guarding the nets. 1 of his caravels is unsuccesfull... the second remains victorious untill our third Caravel can clean up the remains...
Also it is bulbing time just as both Novgorod and Argos grow a pop, nice timing. The GS adds 2493 beakers to Astronomy leaving a little less than 1 turn on Astronomy

Just as we discover Astronomy, I notice that Victory addopts FREE MARKET. Wait a sec... She generate a Great Merchant a turn or so ago... This is the one for Economics! This marks the point ... 2 turns ago she got Economics, which means we have still a shot at Liberalism which is selected as the next tech to research. Meanwhile Mansa has not been sitting on his hands and has researched Education as well. So the race is on!

namliaM · Jan 12, 2007

After bombarding Beijing from 125% !!!! :eek:

down to 0% culture defence there are only 2 Trebs left and they dont have good odds facing that CG3 LB! So I decide to hang back one more turn so I can suicide a Cata instead.
Meanwhile the complement of Beijing has been enriched with another WE (*I wish I never asked*) and a HA.

The real attack on Beijing begins finaly in 1160, the first catapult I send in gets a "get out of jail free"-card. The second is less lucky and bites the dust. I check out the odds on a treb but find them (way) to low for such a pricy piece of equipment, so I send in a rocky Macemen to act as a mini catapult/suicide unit vs that CG3 LB, and what luck! He wins [party]

The rest is allmost clean up as they are allready wounded from the 2 catapults. But just to make a little more sure, I send in another Treb. This one not only takes out the LB, but also generates enough XP for the Great General to be born.

As succesife maceman take out the second and third LB it is really clean up time. The WE is send to the graveyard, the 2nd medic Maceman (yes we have 2, why I dont know??) send the HA to horsy heaven, the Crossbow spikes the Pike and I end up swopping up the sword with a Pike to keep some units (maceman) healthy to ensure we can keep the city. Gentleman we own the pyramids

1166 Bede has finished a great works... He lists the Wealthiest civs, at the time I thought it was the biggest, so I didnt really check. Now that its the wealthiest... hmz... I doubt that Louis has 1000+ cash "available for trade", cause I am sure I would have noticed that!

Time to look at the civics, adopting Representation with our cities grown to cap and some specialists economy in mind... cannot be a bad thing. Addopting Pacifism at this time I think is not a good (enough) thing yet. Also if I do addopt it, it will be 2 turns of anarchy anyway... so doing it in 2 steps doesnt hurt us.
Also we may well consider running Caste System along with it, but we need the whip for a bit more (more on this later)

1172 Comes around as our units are healing in Beijing and Greece culture resets just after our HA has pillaged the camps on the Ivory and a Maceman pillaged the road that was there. Sending the units back in Beijing, soon a worker shows up to (re-) connect the Ivory, I must say I am tempted to just declare war ... but we still dont have the forces to go on two sides...

While some quiet turns pass Mansa adopts Free Market too, this means (probably) that he has researched Economics as well, this would make sure of our claim on Liberalism.
As our caravel travels northbound towards America (they are bound to be backwards with that ch*tty land they have, but maybe we can pick up some cash) it catches a glimps of Montezuma's defenses.... I am impressed to find *uhm* ... near nothing?
Gandhi is whilling to trade one more GPT, so I cancel and renew that deal...
HC has a lot of GPT available and I decide we can put that to good use while he gets the big bonus of having stone :crazyeye:

I try to be cute with Toku, last time his GPT dropped when we cancelled the Gems deal. OK so he needs the gems to get the gold, that makes sence... So I think... He can use our cow too.... So I cancel the 4gpt for Gems deal and GIFT him the gems, but instead of jumping the GPT up to 9 it stays at 4 !
So I sell him the cows for the original 4 and *GRMBL* @ Toku! Now he has Gems and Cows for 4 GPT please rectify this situation ASAP!
I really hate this new AI with adjusting its GPT mid dealing !
I also pick up some change from Isabella...

1172 is also the year that most of our units have healed enough for the first party to leave for Shanghai, the second party leaves 1 turn later. The first party can get an extra turn of bombing in... hopefully hastening the fall of Shanghai a turn. This is what the front (if you can even call it that anymore) and our "economy" looks like currently.

IIRC thats a Maceman/Crossbow/Catapult reinforcement comming from the North.

Novgorod I set on a continues loop of 2 Catapults (suicides?) and a Longbow (for city garison). All other "usefull" troops will be comming from Moscow and/or Yaroslavl.
I have the Great General sleeping in Moscow as I am not sure what to do with him, Moscow currently is producing 21 hammers. But in a little while Yaroslavl with all Workshops will be up to 30. So an sending him to Yaro makes for better longterm, Moscow makes for better short term.
Eventually we need Moscow also to build a few buildings like its currenly building a University and an Observatory is not a bad choice either.
So we will be losing quite some turns building something other than units in Moscow while Yaro is just about done if it is going to focus on units (maybe add HE?)

I have quite a few cities building Monastaries, just in case we need/can use them. I suggest whipping them to finish THIS turn, this way we are sure they finish before getting Liberalism and (possibly) picking Sci Meth as freebee, obsoleeting them but giving us the opportunity to build Missionaries. I made sure to start atleast 1 for each religion (which is why Novgorod got one too).
But we either need to
- Whip the monastaries
- Delay Liberalism
- Pick another tech than Sci Meth.
so we can still build some missionaries should we choose to...

Now to get back to the :whipped:

I promissed to get back to this in relation to Caste system. Now with Representation in place Caste system + Pacifism are the choice civics, but I hate giving up the whip. So I suggest giving every city (for a Monastary or otherwize) a good whipping to get (atleast) 2 pop angry due to whipping, maybe even 3 in selected cities (novgorod, yaroslavl and Moscow come to mind for the extra units). This can then wear off while we are in Caste/Pacifism.

Pacifism works ONLY in cities with our religion of choice, so we need to make sure that the high specialists cities have this religion, hence the Monastaries.

bobrath · Jan 12, 2007

so next up... what the next player should do (since I'm feeling ever so guideable).

namliaM · Jan 12, 2007

Next up? You mean... what to do next?

What I see....
1) Whip some more
2) Revolt to Caste/Pacifism/Hindu?
3) Whipe out Mao
4) Whipe out Alex
5) Get the votes we need

I feel bad for losing the whip tho, all that pop in Beijing and Shanghai is just going to starve...
Also revolting into Hindu will prevent any/most of them chinese/greek cities stop producing (free religious) culture.

IIRC the first signs of WW are creeping up as well. +2 :mad:

in Moscow I think

bobrath · Jan 12, 2007

So I assume that means you forsee keeping Shanghai. I always hated cities that close to one another, but I'm trying to get over that hangup.

Can we afford to lose the free culture in those cities? Additionally, how will our relations be affected by going Hindu? Does it lock up more votes for us OR move neutrals away from us?

I assume the desire to move to pacifism is solely to improve our GP generation - but can we afford it while we're still at war? If we plan on being at war for more then say 20 turns, then wouldn't it behove us to put off the civic switch to caste/pacifism (one or both) until we're closer to peace?

GreyFox · Jan 12, 2007

Looked at the save, excellent shape we are in! Re the bad defense of the Chinese, I think this reinforce my suspicion that Mao is bought into the war by Alex instead by his own initiative. That will explain his seemingly ill-prepared state.

Keeping in mind our long-term objective is backdoor diplomatic win[/u], the way forward in the short term, IMHO:

- The GG should either be joined to Novgod or Athens. Yarslovl' takes too long to come on line (clearing one jungle is 6 turns, workshop IIRC takes another 6), and I agree Moscow should be building infrastructure. Novgod is our next most productive city. Athens have enough food to convert all those cottages to workshops, and it is near the frontline, making it easier to be the reinforcement center (with that in mind, cancel the temple build. Change it to a workshop).

-- I must agree with grabbing SciMeth, its a 5000+ beaker tech, even more lucrative than Astro. Too bad we don't yet have gunpowder, else Chemistry would be the obvious choice. We should delay revolting to Hindu/Pacifism/Slavery after liberalism, may be after Shanghai and Beijng come out of revolt.

-- We are in a prefect shape to take at least 2 more cities (not counting Shanghai). But we need more siege. One can NEVER have enough of them.

Have fun, bob!

Welcome back, Scowler! I'll put you UP after cosmic, that should be enough time for you to get up to speed!

Roster
-- namliaM == Just Played
-- bobrath == UP
-- GreyFox == On Deck
-- Cosmic
-- Scowler
-- dot

Cosmichail · Jan 13, 2007

I don't think we should merge the GG but get an Military academy and since we want Moscow for infrastructure why not build it in Novgrod. If we did put it in Moscow we would have 1 mace every 2 turns. I don't think pacifism is a good move with the military we have and are going to need.

We just discover liberalism and now talk about going to Hindu?? Don't get it and we loose the culture as Bob points out. Getting some monasteries is great so that we can spread it around for additional happy/culture if and when we go to free religion.

This map is very poor production wise as we all agree and a Military academy would serve our purpose much better than the XP points right now. There is quite a bit of Mao left and not too much of ALex.

namliaM · Jan 13, 2007

One of the options clicked is "No city razing"! ! ! So we have no choice but to keep it... It can generate some GP for us

and offcourse coastal with the Great lighthouse means more $$$. I to think it is to close also it would do much better beeing one north.... but that is the AI for ya...

The revolt to hindu and stuff, I dont like it in particular, but I thought that is what the team wanted.... Appearently with Liberalism on the horizon the oppinions have chaged... I think moving into Free Religion is a good idea, both for the

and the 10% bonus on :science:

The free culture is just a boon to that, if we whip some cities hard now (into 3 unhappy or so) it may still be worth it to revolt to Caste. There are some cities (i.e. Novgorod) that can work their needed tiles with 3 or 4 added unhappy from the whip! Having the free specialist in all of our 8 cities = 24 free beakers/turn. 48 if this is a scientist. + hammers/coins. IIRC we produce something like 300 beakers at current = ~10%

The GG to Athens? Uhm not something I like... Most everything around it is water... this must be a GP generator IMHO.
Yaro allready has 2 workshops, but ... yeah I think building the acadamy in Novgorod is the wize thing to do for we need more units now...
Re: Seige, yes I agree Greyfox. This is why I set Novgorod on Cata/Cata/LB rotation, we can build macemen/crossbows (dont need to many more of these)/ Trebs from Moscow/Yaroslavl to keep going.
I think with a few Catapults we can role over Mao without problems, the one problem we may have is WW. Allready 2 :mad:

in Moscow and we only captured one city

.
We may need to revolt to Police State in order to finish the job on Mao (-50% WW and +50% production on units

)

Edit:
Just how much more Infra is moscow going to build? Observatory MAYBE, how many turns is that? 8 or so? what else? Maybe ... the best thing to do would be to get the academy in Moscow?

What is our next researcht target? Chemistry?

What do we do with the Great Scientist? Bulb our way to Physics or make an Acadamy somewhere?
If an acadamy where? We need to make good ~2600 beakers if we are not bulbing. If the city produces 50 raw beakers, this comes down to 25 bonus +10% liberalism = 28 beakers. 2600/28 = roughly 85-90 turns of the acadamy to "pay back" and start making a profit.

bobrath · Jan 13, 2007

Couple final questions before I play:

Tech path from here (assuming we get LIberalism first):
Free Tech to be Sci Meth (since it has the most beakers), but then research what?

Academy in Novgorod or Yarsolavl?

Remove Mao 100% OR reduce him by 2-3 more cities and take whatever peace offering I can yank out of him (thus freeing us to remove Alex if needed)?

GreyFox · Jan 13, 2007

I think Novgod is better, Yarslavl take stoo long to catch up in hammer.

Tech wise, I suggest going gun-powder > Chemistry

Up to you on whether to eliminate Mao or not, but I think we can take at least 2 more (excluding Shanghai).

namliaM · Jan 13, 2007

I think we want to be heading towards Chemistry now... but I am not sure... we are so far ahead in tech, baring Victoria and Mansa that is...
I think we want to go to Chemistry, meanwhile bulb Physics with a couple of scientists...

Mao has one city out due east

removing him completely is going to be tough, but be sure to remove him enough and as long as WW can be handled... We may want to revolt to Police State.... but I dont know about that...

Macao is the painfully removed city, it is a logistical nightmare to get there to whipe out Mao completely! We would have to get galleys to the other end of Alex's land, with whom we dont have OBs at the moment.
We would be stuck with a lot of WW for a long time, so taking Mao of the map is not a real option right now, unless we can get 2 galleons loaded up pretty soon.... and moving out.

Shanghai, well just looking at the map, we simply cannot skip it.
But if we give it the fish from Nanjing it can run quite some specialists to contribute to our empire.

Nanjing, I dont understand why there are farms there....
The two lakes with a lighthouse (+2food) + CC = +4 food. enough to work those plains tiles. Cottage the place up I think and make a nice return....
And it is on the way to Guangzhou

Hangzhou
Will if we dont take this one, nanjing will be pretty much useless

Guangzhou
Judaist holy city, must have this one. Presumably there is the shrine too (I havent checked) Other than that this city is basicaly not worth having.

Tianjin, Xian
May be worth grabbing, as its nice and close-ish to our capitol will bring in some gold, but not much and none at all if we dont take Xian.
Personaly I would make these 2 cities 1 city, 2 north of Xian... but nothing we can do about it.

Chendu
Way south, probably very high upkeep. But if we want them Beavers... we will have to take it. It has 2 food resources and can appearently sustain size 9, so it is not to bad a city....

So we can leave for sure Macao and maybe chengu. We want (IMHO) shanghai, Nanjing (just cause it is on the way to Guangzhou) and Guangzhou.
Leaving Mao with a badly split empire, effectively removing him from the game.

The academy is a numbers game.... how many hammers bonus will we get in Novgorod vs How many hammers will we get in Moscow/Yaro and in what timeframe.... Remember that the bonus is only for RAW hammers, not the bonus allready from bureaucracy and/or forge.

Cosmichail · Jan 13, 2007

What is our next researcht target? Chemistry?

Please, please my favourite the invincible grennies and of course what follows that for absolute superiority, cannons. Then we shall rule the world and beat them to a diplomatic victory MUHAAAAAA......

The academy is a numbers game....

Haven't done the numbers makes my brain hurt must fulfill bloodlust ARGH....

However we are five techs away from our goal and maybe a sidestep to cannons so how effective is that academy going to be? Beijing and Athens too will offer some use in that department but again a ways off and we need to take the cultural pressures off.

We better whip those monasteries as I believe even holding lib back one turn is not good as that Vicky is a fast researcher and of course so is MM. Let's not let them get it just this once please please. (every SP game I play they always get it as I am always over focused on military but in the end their lib jump didn't make a bit of difference as all their cities are rubble now)

I also keep forgetting about city razing and never play that way. How about taking some of those crappy cities and gifting to somebody for favor at the UN.

EDIT: MA too in Athens wouldn't be good I think unless the intent is to whip the soldiers but if we go to caste that's not going to work. I still believe Moscow is the main Military city whether we like it or not and glad to see a change of heart namliaM. I like Novgorod but it's logistically awkward and Moscow can get troops to the front line much faster. Although with Astro that isn't as much as a problem now. Chemistry will also add another hammer to those work shops in Yaroslavl.

LOOKING GOOD :woohoo:

(look how the AI sucks at having decent production cities. I am beginning to believe that is their Achilles heal now. They do good in the beginning but late game suck. It just shows how well we are doing since they are sucking in the beginning and likely to suck more later in the game as the techs get harder and harder to research.)

namliaM · Jan 13, 2007

Cosmichail said:
However we are five techs away from our goal and maybe a sidestep to cannons so how effective is that academy going to be?

Assuming you mean Science Academy
Well they are BIG if not HUGE techs... Sci Meth is ~5400 beakers (we take this for free right?) Physics IIRC some >7500 and Mass media > 10000 beakers.
At ~500 beakers/turn Mass Media is 20 turns! with 5 techs on our beeline and more on the "want"

list our win is atleast 100 turns from now.
But I think our big concern is not getting to Mass Media but rather balancing tech vs expansion to secure enough (own) votes.
Also we need to start looking for someone we want to PA with. I think we can gain Gandhi's vote without the PA. Toku may even vote for us if/when we addopt mercentalism once our empire grows and trading partners lower.
Victoria is she a nice PA partner? in particular with her Teching to the needed techs and us getting them for free

Cosmichail said:
We better whip those monasteries as I believe even holding lib back one turn is not good as that Vicky is a fast researcher and of course so is MM.

If/when we can we should open up a second front on Mansa?? Assuming we are going for the Hindu friends, Mansa/Hathy and HC make logical enemies. So does Saladin should he build Versailles.

Our current front should continue to conquer China/Greece/Rome/Persia??

In comparison I am stunned that both Victoria and Mansa can keep track as they are. Other AIs seem WAY and WAY behind, not even having paper... i.e. Tokugowa (but then he is allways out of it).

Cosmichail said:
How about taking some of those crappy cities and gifting to somebody for favor at the UN.

IF this will work... AI dont allways accept cities. This could be a sneaky way of slowing Victoria to a more acceptable / comparable pace, gifting her crappy/tundra/Ice cities (once we have established cultural dominance in the area) all around the globe for her to support. That is IF she accepts them

Cosmichail said:
I still believe Moscow is the main Military city whether we like it or not and glad to see a change of heart namliaM. I like Novgorod but it's logistically awkward and Moscow can get troops to the front line much faster. Although with Astro that isn't as much as a problem now. Chemistry will also add another hammer to those work shops in Yaroslavl.

Hey I am not all that pushy and stubburn, I can be when I believe I am right... but ...
There offcourse is also good synergy with the instructor allready in Moscow.
Still it is a simple numbers thing, logistics is a non issue the delay of travel from Novgorod is just 2 turns. If that means we get a "free" catapult every 5 or 10 turns... I certainly dont mind.

From the cities post I made way back when....
Novgorod has 17 raw hammers, which would mean 8 hammers from the Military Academy.
IIRC Moscow has 20 raw hammers, meaning 10 free hammers from the MA.
Once we have chemistry, Yaroslavl will be running 30 hammers.

I think we can do the MA in moscow now and use the next for a MA in Yaro. Meanwhile Yaro can start building the Epic?

These posts probably need reworking but...
Long term goals
Cities
Techtree/beeline/GPs
Wonders
Research times
GP generation

bobrath · Jan 13, 2007

Played before I read your comments Cosmic (and then namliam), but not too bad on my part. Played just 10 turns since I had reached a good point.

First (real) turn I met Washington. Nothing really special - being the leader of an iceball, he doesn't even have optics - rubbish bin of history for you! I did trade him clams for 2gpt tho. Might as well get some cash off him. I upgraded one of our galleys in Moscow to a Galleon and with Liberalism due next turn, whipped out 4 monasteries (1 Jewish, 2 Hindu, and 1 confused).

We got to Liberalism first so I took Sci Meth as directed (Nationalism was taunting me) and began research on Gunpowder. I looked at our civics and decided a single turn revolution to Free Religion was the only real necessity. This might have been a slight :smoke:

as I chose to ignore Caste in favor of having the whip still available in a few turns when our conquests popped out.

The same turn as we discovered Sci Meth, a GS was born in Yarsolavl' He would give us 2565 beakers for Physics. I held off and he is currently waiting for the next player to assign his fate (with 2619 beakers on his lightbulb). Oh and Oil was discovered underneath the ground of Yarsolavl'. Great little city site there...

Our upgraded Galleon attacked the "bad ship" with 69% odds... and lost. Our caravel cleaned up and earned his third combat star. We have another Mao caravel south of Novgorod and two of our caravels are nearby to take action.

Hmm, what else... oh yeah the massive stack left for me quickly took down Shanghai - almost too easy.

I also founded a military academy in Novgorod. The lone ship we have there has been happily shuttling over new units to Moscow.

Notre Dame was BIFAL early on in my turn set. At the same time (when we came out of revolt - to see Gunpowder would take 6 turns to research), I decided that since the Paper monopoly had been broken and many civs had far too much gold in their banks... I would redistribute the wealth. Cyrus, Louis, Alex, Kublai, and Huyana combined to pay us 1290 gold. We're still running at 100% research now and Chemistry is 6 turns out.

When Bejing came out of revolt, I whipped a Theatre and then a library. We now have no more starving unhappy citizens. Its working on a harbor to maximize our trade there. Shanghai just came out of revolt and I whipped the lighthouse to get its growth in shape (and there are no more unhappy left).

Mansa came to us offering Guilds and 30g for LIberalism. I chose to decline, but we might want to look at our tech position because there is a lot of gold out there AND some techs we could use. (don't forget that MT gives us cossaks....).

I had split our big stack to take out Nanjing and Hangzhou within a short period of time... Too bad both (and Guangzhou) were founded on hillsides. Those LBMs with city CG3 and drill are just plain nasty. I ended up capturing Nanjing but it was *very* expensive. We'll be able to hold it, but my overconfidence at the ease of capture... well it was realigned. Hangzhou is ready for the next player to take out, but I'd suggest bringing some of the Nanjing attack force over to make sure we take it. Hangzhou has just one LBM and a mace, but the odds are pure ugly there.

Future turns... We can look at trying to take out Guangzhou since its a great choke point, however Protective Mao is going to make it a tough nut. We're in the clear (as of my last turn) on the WW, but check it out just in case.

Mao has diddly to offer us in peace right now - he's poor. Taking out Hangzhou will leave Mao with copper and iron, but no horses. He's all but down now anyway.

Here's the Chinese front:

We have a medic mace and CG2 crossbow in Nanjing. The rest of the (spent) attack stack is one north. No sign of counterattackers on the map, but never know with AIs.

The Save

Uploader log:

Spoiler :

GreyFox · Jan 14, 2007

Wonderfully played ... I am worried abt Nanjing though, the defenders a bit weak. Hopefully there is no AI counter attack in the IBT.

Got it .... I think I would play right now ... nothing much to discuss, just keep hammering on Mao ... i want to assimilate as much of Chinese cities as possible. We are currently not the largest in both size and land, we have to catch up faster in view of our final objective. Currently, we are at around 7% in both land and pop, while HC is first at 9% each.

Research wise, definitely heading for chemistry, and then Physics. The scientist will be used to get us physics (that will net us another scientist
-- ha, buy one get one free).

Roster
-- namliaM
-- bobrath == Just Played
-- GreyFox == Got it
-- Cosmic == On Deck
-- Scowler
-- Dot

-- FuRRie / Robo == please post something if you are no longer on autoskip

-

GreyFox · Jan 14, 2007

Played halfway (6 turns), decided to stop for discussion.

I made a trade with Mansa, and renewed some other trades.

Hangzhou turns out to be tough, since it has a CG2 longbow on hills. waited a few turns for more siege to arrive ... and then this happens out of no where:

Geez ... where did that came from? Must be Mao bribing him in ... I was a bit concerned since our main cities are almost defenseless. The next series of troops production should definitely be used to reinforce all our cities.

Got Hangzhou, but the RNG was terrible to me. I almost smashed my laptop's screen when the longbow single handedly killed two maces and a cross bow all at >75%.

Another piece of bad news is Alex seems to cultural bombed Sparta:

Some better news: Chemistry is in

I spend half our gold upgrading maces to grenies. The reason I stopped halfway is ecause I would like to sell some tech for more gold, and like to hear the team's opinion on that.

Here is the trade screen:

Any comments? I'll continue 5 more turns 24 hrs later.

>>> The Save, in case anyone wants to take a look <<<
--

bobrath · Jan 14, 2007

Monty killed his OB with me about halfway through our turns. I chalked it up to just Monty being pissy over my trading with half the world. Could be Mao tho too. Not much worry tho since Monty doesn't have Astro so the best he can do is slowly bring minimal troops over via galleys. Does he have OB with Hatty or HC? If he doesn't then... well we can try cutting the attack off if either will cut him off. Doubtful HC will since they share the same religion.

Yes, the LBMs on hills are just nasty, that's the reason I held off trying to take during my turnset - even with 5-2 headcount odds. Heck in that case, siege might kill the mace with collateral before the lbm falls! Keep this in mind when we move to Guangzhou since its also on a hill. We'll have grens, but it still going to be expensive taking out the top 1 or 2 defenders.

Tech wise... Ghandi and JC have some big banks that need to be spent. Looks to me like Philosophy might be a good sale to some of the tech trailers - heck if Monty hadn't declared on us, would could even pick up Divine Right for it... dangit.

Anyone that does not have paper - sell it to them for whatever you can get (Isabel and Saladin) since I've already broken that tech out in to the world.
If pressed, I'd probably sell Printing Press next (instead of Education), mainly cause I'm trying to keep other civs off the gunpowder track as long as possible. Hmmm however if they already have guilds then its moot. Not sure between PP and Educ. Pick one and sell the heck out of it, BUT I would do this in two stages. Make a single trades for Guilds, Nationalism, and DR with the AI least likely to resell its new tech. That way next turn we can trade for any of the other techs (banking, MT!!!!, Constitution).
I'd target Hatty (for DR) and Cyrus (for guilds) for the first round of tech sales.

BTW, were we going to try to get the Statue of Liberty? IF so then I'd sell Education before PP.

Cosmichail · Jan 14, 2007

As to Monty we just need a few galleons and take him out before he lands anywhere. We should anticipate his direction and be ready for him so his soldiers can join the rest of dead in the sea.

We may not be the largest but we also should be careful not to overexpand.

@Fox with this new patch I won't even consider it at 75% anymore and even notice one can loose at 95% and win at 30%???. Only answer, lots and lots of trebs/cats. I bet we wish we had put that MA in Moscow now.

Please make the deals Fox you da master and I will be glad to go bop some heads. Here's a thought:

1. I don't like Mao's lands down South and maybe once we control enough culture let him go for now. We need to get that Sparta and relieve the culture pressure there although I think there is no city flipping too??
Not immediately of course but so that we can deal with Monty and only way he'll give peace for a while is costly. I have noticed he always wants a city after declaring which means we have to hurt him where it counts. LE CAPITOL. Can we keep it is the question but that's what we'll have to do to get him off our back or even better entice a few AI's to go after him maybe then he will be more reasonable.

Terrible timing of course but that's what seems to be the case now. You must pretty much expect another war when you start one. (happens 99% of the time with me in this patch.) I am so certain of it now I build a fair sized military and seek out mine enemies. My generals then set up camp near their borders. (They do get bored so sometimes make the move and the AI doesn't always come as expected.) I sometimes think when he/she sees a huge military sitting near their border they think twice.

(don't mind me but I am a "MILITARY NUT" and would prefer to have two or three armies then leaving warriors garrisoned. ) That makes me sweat. With a MA in Moscow we could be probably pumping out grennies every three turns. Novgorod is still good probably more like 4 turns but Monty isn't even close so he's in for a royal kick in the ass. I am certain Grennies get really good odds against CD2 lbm when they are at least CR2. We should now have at least four CR3 grennies.

Gentlemen we need to focus more on military. Back door you say or big axe to beat them until we control it.

Our axe isn't big enough although we are getting there. We have a long way to go for the Backdoor as we must use an army to make is possible. Is it not then wise to then pound out military only. Forget/infra - pretty stuff for now. Just bloodNguts. If we go after Monty then we will need reinforcements to hold and advance. That will take at least 2 armies or a landing of four galleons. (Let the GS do the science)

Oh Geez did you say chemistry. OMG Frigates oh baby we definitely going to need some of those puppies and with that bonus Monty ships are definitely not leaving. We shouldn't loose the whip either for now. (yep I said it the antiwhipper blood n guts)

If he does land something which he will try and usually has the ships in position just before declaring then we will need to whip.

China

namliaM mentioned the holy city but it's only any good to us with a shrine and I don't see us popping any priest soon. So is that city important? Any thoughts on vassal or does the negative scare our diplomatic team.

namliaM · Jan 14, 2007

Had a look at the save...To bad about the Military Acadamy... well whats done is done...
I agree with bob, on Cyrus and Hathy first on Guilds and DR. +WM + Bank both.

SoL = Free specialist on THIS continent. If we want to build it on China/Greek lands, maybe its worth something otherwize... If it is up to me... No thanks... To little gain for to many hammers.

On tech, do we want to be researching Physics right now? Maybe we pick up steel (9 turns) first?

The spartan culture is not a culture bomb, but normal culture growth... There is no jump on the Greek culture graph. Greek culture is overwhelming in that area...

Why a barracks in Athens tho? Maybe we can whip a Mace or two, but the whips in Athens right now are better spend on Observatory/University/Market/Grocer/Harbor/Courthouse/Frigate(s) than on units IMHO. Tho we do needs units and lots of them... so maybe its a good choice...

Why the 2 Artists in Beijing?? We can never hope to overcome the centuries of culture from greece. The one and only way is to take out greece. Want another reason to take on Alex? He is farming over a TOWN near Athens??? *GRMBL*. Does GG (General Greyfox) dare to leave the Chinese front and re-open the front on alex? Alex' cities are on flat land.... so it might be worth the detour... Alex I dont worry about I think he is still broken from our previous war... Mao is also broken and doesnt have a serious production city left...
So if we leave 2 defenders in either southern city, I think we will be OK. And we can do some target practice on Alex, while securing Athens from his dog gone culture.
If we do start on Alex, we may want to bring a Galleon south to take out Mycean (or something)

Why dont we disband the scout in Argos?? He is not going to help us anytime soon I dont think...

About upgrading, I wouldnt upgrade a CR2 maceman right now. Try getting them to CR3 first before granting them to Grenadiers.
IF you do want CR2 Grens remember that Pikeman upgrade to Grens too and get CR as well. But are 15 hammers cheaper than Macemen.

Rostov, needs some MM. It is working a coastal tile instead of the Cottage. And it can use some culture, switch production to a theatre?

GP Generation...
12 Moscow (16 per turn) 1/8 GS, 3/8 GE, 1/2 GM
23 + 9 St. Peters (18 per turn) 2/3 GS, 1/3 GE
28 + 8 + 8 Beijing (20 per turn) Highly mixed
33 + 9 + 9 + 9 Yaroslavl (18 per turn) 2/3 GS, 1/3 GE
35 + 9 + 9 + 9 + 9 Athens (18 per turn) Mixed.

Physics is 8970 beakers. So we can burn 3 scientists on it, we have 1 allready so we can use 2 more. The best chances we have are in St. Petes and Yaro, but they are a ways off... is it worth waiting for them?
If we delay Moscow and Beijing, it will take St. Petes 23 turns and Yaroslavl 33 + 9 = 42 turns to pop the scientist/Engineer.
At our current rate Physics is 13 turns research... Steel is just 9.
The thing to keep in mind is after Physics it is going to be near impossible to get a Scientist to burn on a tech we need/want for the UN.

Electricity is 18 turns, Radio 23 and Mass Media 14 turns. With us running -100GPT at the moment. Lets assume our expanding empire will go up to -150 GPT on average over that time. We also pick up a little research speed offcourse... 18+23+14=55 turns. Save 5 turns for our growing empire 50 * 150 GPT = 7500 gold we need to ecomicaly "survive" our way to Mass Media. AFTER researching both Steel and Physics that is.
Then we need time to build us UN and vote...
At 0% science we make 240 gpt right now, I think without a single market in place.
And offcourse our conquest will both make us some money and cost us in upkeep and trading partners.

So 50 turns + 13 (Physics) + 9 (Steel) = 72 turns we can have Mass Media.
Assuming 1500 / 33 = 46 turns!!! to build the UN in Moscow without the aid of a GE. Making a total of a 120 turns to the UN (minimum).
In a 120 turns from now the problem I think is not where do we get beakers, rather votes... i.e. how do we get to 60%??

If we are going to delay Moscows GP, it can use some whipping transposing the food into hammers

edit: XPost with Cosmic
On the shrine, The temple of solomon has allready been build and is never (or I have never noticed it) destroyed, a quick count shows about 15 cities having Judaism.
Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism all have shrines...
Confusionalism (Mansa) and Buddism (Monty) are the two big ones that are missing.

Notice that Cosmic and I both come to (more or less) the same conclusion without seeing eachothers posts. How are we going to get to 60%?
One thing I did think off, we dont need to raise our pop to get to 60% but we can also lower the AI's by simply pillaging the HELL out of them. No food = no pop = No votes

On getting to 60% I think the Island of Mansa/Hathy/HC will make a good addition to our voting power and be managable in upkeep.
One part of infra we do/will want/need: Courthouses & the FP someplace....

bobrath · Jan 14, 2007

Artists were put there to get the initial two culture pops. AI automatically puts it there for us and I saw no reason to prevent it since they were getting us beakers as well. Forgot to mention that reducing their count after border pop was a good idea.

The best reason for taking the Holy Jewish city (Guangzhou) is to relieve its cultural pressure on our recent aquisitions AND it makes a darn good defense against any future Mao incursions.

BTW cats/trebs don't do us much good in removing the top defenders. The have such terrible odds that in short stack cities, we're better off throwing a mace or 3 at the LBM since once its gone, the rest fall apart. Now for Alex (non-protective AND no hills) its a totally different story.

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