Heehee makes the game more interesting though haphazard1.
I was going to suggest we revolt to slavery and whip an army before your turnset but a bit late for that now.
I would suggest seeing if he will take CoL for peace. If not soften his stack with the cats and wipe them out then see what he will take for a peace deal. I won't be able to see the save until tomorrow but we will have to build some defensive troops whatever happens.
Slavery could be useful to whip some libraries, granaries, and other infra. And some units, of course. But we really do need the worker boost of Serfdom. And we need to grow our pop to work more tiles, and to increase our unit support cap. We have tons of happy cap at the moment -- we need to grow, grow, grow.
But Slavery is an option in a true emergency. I do not think this qualifies. We can smash Mao's stack, and we can almost certainly get peace if we have to.
I would suggest seeing if he will take CoL for peace. If not soften his stack with the cats and wipe them out then see what he will take for a peace deal. I won't be able to see the save until tomorrow but we will have to build some defensive troops whatever happens.
I favor trying to smash Mao's stack, and then see if he will take a straight up peace deal. We need the time to rebuild our military and get some real defenders in place, rather than the paper-thin defenses we currently have. I will start building some general defenders, muskets most likely. They are very strong for this era, and nothing can get good odds on them. Not all that great on offense, but by the time we are ready to go back on offense (if we decide to) we should have knights at least and maybe cuirassiers. Or rifles, cannon, and cossacks.
For Mao's stack, I think we have good odds of wiping out all 7 of his units for maybe 2 losses on our side (1 cat, and one other random unit just from RNG). If we get lucky we could lose nothing (cat retreats, etc.); if we get unlucky we could lose 4 units. But most likely we trade about 2 for 7, which is not bad. And hopefully crushing his stack will allow us to get a straight peace deal.
I will resume play in about 9 hours, so still plenty of time to get your thoughts posted. And of course feel free to tell me to wait for more discussion, if you do not like this plan.
The following is how I would approach the problem of smashing Mao's stack with minimal risk of unit loss:
0) Workers built Road that allows attack this turn by WE, Cats and Maceman.
1) Use strongest Shock promoted War Elephant to take out Longbowman at about 85% or better (All Shock does is gives us Longbowman defender rather than Spearman defender).
2) Use strongest non-Shock promoted War Elephant (try Combat 4 promotion and see whether that heals the Combat 3 WE enough to try this; otherwise just use Combat 2 WE) to take out Spearman at best odds we can get (70+%).
3) Use strongest two units that will kill the two Axeman.
4) Use 2 Catapults at about 60-70% and then 70-85% odds.
5) Killing the rest should be trivial.
With this approach we have a fair chance of losing no units (.85 * .70 * .65 * .75 = .29 = 29%). A 29% chance of losing no units versus this stack is very good actually. (Probability of losing to Axemen not counted, since the Win probability should be close to 95-100% via War Elephants or Horse Archer.)
If one starts out with a Catapult, its only 25% chance the Catapult itself survives and one hasn't even calculated the chances of losing a second unit, probably the second Catapult. At least kill the Longbowman before attacking with Catapults.
This a great opportunity to bring Mao Zedong to his knees and force him to almost beg for Peace. To bad his stack will not be in our Culture when we smash it.
Thanks for the ideas -- using a shock promoted elephant to force battle with the LB is not a tactic I had considered. I am not certain it will work -- the LB is Combat 1, Drill 1 (and CG 1 which does not matter here) for effective strength of 6.6 + Drill 1 (this gets counted by the odds system, sometimes in odd ways). The spear is Combat 1 (I think), so a shock elephant would make this +10% and +75% overall for effective strength of 7.4.
I know there is a lot of additional math because the game actually applied "counter" promotions as a reduction of the strength of the other unit and not as a boost to the unit with the promo. But the ratios should be correct.
The result is that unless the Drill 1 promotion gets more weight than I think, the elephant has less of an advantage over the spear than the LB, even with the shock promotion. So the spear should still defend first. If a little damage was done first, though, this could change...which brings us back to using a cat to "soften" the enemy stack.
Cat will be 5.0 vs the LB's 6.6 + Drill 1. This is not likely to win but we do get withdrawal chance, and the ratio is not too bad so we are likely to get at least some damage on the LB. Plus we get collateral on other units, although the stack is big enough we are not guaranteed to hit the spear. Even if the cat dies, we will get better odds on most of the other fights, so our total odds of losing a unit end up being about the same. Except that we get the advantage of "concentrating" the probable loss on a specific unit, which happens to be cheap and easily replaced (since we now have two cities which can produe 5 XP cats), rather than risking the loss of a multi-promotion elephant.
I am still tempted to use the 5 XP cat as the initial attacker. Second cat will depend on what damage the first one manages to do -- I would prefer to save it for later to clean up an easier target. But if we do not get collateral on the spear then a second cat attack is likely to be the best choice, to preserve our more expensive units.
Another factor is that we probably can not kill all of Mao's stack, at least without risking our GG chariot and/or leaving Marseilles undefended. And Mao could reach the city with a chariot from the fog...and he did have 2 chariots in Shanghai a couple turns ago. So we need to keep at least 2 units in Marseilles...meaning we will not have enough to fully eliminate Mao's stack. Does this argue for using the cats to inflict collateral, making any survivors wounded and easier to defeat later, or to hold them back and hope they can win battles with weaker units after our elephants fight the top defenders? We are more likely to lose a top unit, but also more likely to get a complete kill of Mao's stack.
Decisions, decisions.
Anyway, I am very tired after a difficult day at work, so I will play tomorrow morning after I get some sleep and have a clearer mind. So there is still plenty of time to post more thoughts and ideas.
Thanks for the ideas -- using a shock promoted elephant to force battle with the LB is not a tactic I had considered. I am not certain it will work -- the LB is Combat 1, Drill 1 (and CG 1 which does not matter here) for effective strength of 6.6 + Drill 1 (this gets counted by the odds system, sometimes in odd ways). The spear is Combat 1 (I think), so a shock elephant would make this +10% and +75% overall for effective strength of 7.4.
I know there is a lot of additional math because the game actually applied "counter" promotions as a reduction of the strength of the other unit and not as a boost to the unit with the promo. But the ratios should be correct.
The result is that unless the Drill 1 promotion gets more weight than I think, the elephant has less of an advantage over the spear than the LB, even with the shock promotion. So the spear should still defend first. If a little damage was done first, though, this could change...which brings us back to using a cat to "soften" the enemy stack.
Cat will be 5.0 vs the LB's 6.6 + Drill 1. This is not likely to win but we do get withdrawal chance, and the ratio is not too bad so we are likely to get at least some damage on the LB. Plus we get collateral on other units, although the stack is big enough we are not guaranteed to hit the spear. Even if the cat dies, we will get better odds on most of the other fights, so our total odds of losing a unit end up being about the same. Except that we get the advantage of "concentrating" the probable loss on a specific unit, which happens to be cheap and easily replaced (since we now have two cities which can produe 5 XP cats), rather than risking the loss of a multi-promotion elephant.
I am still tempted to use the 5 XP cat as the initial attacker. Second cat will depend on what damage the first one manages to do -- I would prefer to save it for later to clean up an easier target. But if we do not get collateral on the spear then a second cat attack is likely to be the best choice, to preserve our more expensive units.
Another factor is that we probably can not kill all of Mao's stack, at least without risking our GG chariot and/or leaving Marseilles undefended. And Mao could reach the city with a chariot from the fog...and he did have 2 chariots in Shanghai a couple turns ago. So we need to keep at least 2 units in Marseilles...meaning we will not have enough to fully eliminate Mao's stack. Does this argue for using the cats to inflict collateral, making any survivors wounded and easier to defeat later, or to hold them back and hope they can win battles with weaker units after our elephants fight the top defenders? We are more likely to lose a top unit, but also more likely to get a complete kill of Mao's stack.
Decisions, decisions.
Anyway, I am very tired after a difficult day at work, so I will play tomorrow morning after I get some sleep and have a clearer mind. So there is still plenty of time to post more thoughts and ideas.
Whenever you select a unit, BtS always puts the stack Defender for that potential attacker on top of the enemy stack.
You can also hover the cursor over the enemy stack and hold down the Alt key for the attacker and defender calculation for the first unit that attacks (the currently selected one). The odds for a War Elephant Combat 2 Shock (fully healthy) versus the Longbowman was 84.xy% (I don't remember the fraction .xy). In any case, I would consider roughly 85% odds with the WE C2Sh versus the Longbowman acceptable. Just getting rid of the Longbowman defender will mean the Catapult faces an Axeman CR1 and the Catapult's odds improve from about 25% to 50% or even better. The second Catapult would get perhaps 60% odds against the second Axeman CR1.
Now I know you really want to use the Catapults earlier, so please try this instead (the odds of the first attack are within 1% accurate; others are guess-estimations):
0) Workers build Road
1) WE C2 Shock vs. Longbowman CG1Dr1+ 85% (Game calculated it to be at least 84%)
2) Catapult CR2 vs. Axeman CR1 roughly 50% (Estimated)
3) Catapult CR1Acc vs. Axeman CR1 roughly 60% (Estimated - 10% improved due to collateral damage of Axeman from step #2)
4) All remaining defenders should be down 1 or more hit points by now (two hits of collateral damage) and easy to kill with WE, and HA.
The Horse Archer should be able to attack and retreat into Marseilles, if I'm not mistaken. Might be able to leave Maceman in City as garrison. The Chariot C1Med3 may be able to safely take out an Axeman CR1 1.3/5.0 that was beaten to the max by a Catapult (and return to Marseilles if the Axeman is not the last enemy unit).
Phants do have good odds but if the rng goes against us not so good. But happy either way. Better not to lose any unit which is more likely phant first.
Thought about clearing fallout without ob's which might be possibility with Mao we can always declare and take workers in our stack to clean up.
City defenders. With there built in bonus I think we should use LBs rather than muskets for defenders. Much cheaper and nearly as good so would also Copper/Rice into a military pump for most of the remainder of the game. Galley for overseas settler(s) would be nice as well.
City defenders. With there built in bonus I think we should use LBs rather than muskets for defenders. Much cheaper and nearly as good so would also Copper/Rice into a military pump for most of the remainder of the game. Galley for overseas settler(s) would be nice as well.
You win on the Hammer cost issue (Longbowman = 50H, Musketman = 90H), if that were our only consideration.
The Longbowman's innate +25% City Defense and +25% Hill Defense are both effective only for Hill Cities and we don't have many of those.
However, an unpromoted Musketman is slightly stronger in a Hill City due to the way Defense bonuses are applied.
The real difference in Defense between Musketman and Longbowman is when promotions are applied. The Musketman with Base Strength 9 with get +50% more benefit of Strength based bonuses than the Longbowman with just Base Strength 6. Unfortunately, due to the way Civ IV applies all but Combat bonuses it is more difficult to illustrate this difference with an example. The Longbowman's innate Defense of +25% or +50% in Hill Cities just can't keep with a Musketman when one or more promotions are applied.
We will be building our Defending units mainly in Cities that provide 5 XP and thus two promotions. Those promotions will likely be City Garrison I & II, providing +20% and +25% additional City Defense; that means essentially 45% of Strength 9 for a Musketman versus essentially 45% of Strength 6 for a Longbowman. A Musketman CG2 defender will hold firm against a bigger enemy stack than a Longbowman CG2 would just due to their differences in Base Strength; the Longbowman's innate abilities are good, but fall short on Flat Ground and really not quite adequate on Hill Cities either.
Now if one has a limited number of Hammers to spend on Defense and needs multiple Defenders per City, more Longbowmen might be better than fewer Musketman. For example, 150H will build three Longbowmen and 160H will build two Musketman. That roughly the same number of Hammers spent. Without formally analyzing the situation, I'd prefer two Musketman defenders to three Longbowmen in a Flat City and maybe three Longbowmen in a Hill City (Longbowman's +25% Hill Defense).
OK, sorry for the delay. Had a small mishap with my glasses, had to run to LensCrafters for some emergency repairs.
Thanks for the additional thoughts, Sun Tzu Wu. 85% or so against the LB is not bad, and it would give the cats much better odds of making a kill. This would help a lot in eliminating Mao's entire stack while still having a unit or two left over to guard Marseilles. The HA and GG chariot can (if necessary) strike and retreat to the city as well.
OK, played an additional 10 turns for a total of 13. Trends are positive, although we still have some ways to go in restoring our economy and strengthening our position.
T163 (continued)
- The battle against Mao's stack begins! As Sun Tzu Wu recommended after crunching the numbers, I send in the C2-Shock elephant first, and it killed the LB.
- Our 5XP cat attacked next, and lost at 63% odds. But the spear was damaged.
- Out 7 XP cat attacked and withdrew after mauling the other axe, and the spear took more damage.
- The rest was mop up at very high odds, Several units got enough XP for a promotion, including our GG chariot who is now level 6. If we ever have the tech and want to build it, West Point is unlocked.
- Mao's stack is crushed and wiped out. Only the one cat was lost, although we have a lot of hurt units. Mao still wants Marseilles for peace.
T164
- Gandhi gets a Great Merchant.
- Mao moves his single LB which was south of his stack northeast into the forest.
- I promote our GG chariot for extra movement; we need a good recon unit and we do not want him strong enough to ever be chosen to defend anyway.
T165
- Mao adopts Vassalage.
- Mao's LB moves SE towards TwinGems.
- An elephant crushes Mao's LB, gaining his 17th XP for another promo.
- Roosevelt now has Guilds (not for trade yet of course).
T166
- Mao completes the Hanging Gardens in Guangzhou. We could have had it, but oh well.... Hopefully we will still get the Pyramids.
- Roosevelt founds San Francisco somewhere for his 8th city.
- Churchill adopts Bureaucracy.
- Our GG does some scouting, with help from the horse archer. Shanghai has 2 LB, an HA, an Axe, a Cat, and 2 chariots. Mao also has 2 LB 3E of Shanghai, and 3 LB 3S of Shanghai. Lots of tough defenders. He still wants Marseilles for peace.
- Our first gem mine is hooked up.
T167
- Enemy infiltrators destroy our new gem mine. I blame Mao -- his having a spy in this area would explain how he knew TwinGems was weakly defended. It is unusual for an AI to bypass a city like he did, and this would explain it. No actual proof, though.
- SugarPig finishes its library, begins a university. It should still beat Quicksilver, though, as workers continue improving its tiles.
- Churchill gets a Great Prophet, and now has Engineering.
- I give Mao Code of Laws for peace. We will not be in a position to attack for a long time, and he has techs we want (Aesthetics, Compass) which maybe we will be able to trade for. And hopefully we can get some foreign trade routes.
- With peace signed, Mao will not trade techs. I do grab his 4 gpt for corn.
- We do get foreign trade routes with Gandhi and Roosevelt. All our TRs are now foreign, averaging about 2.7 apiece for a boost of about 24 commerce per turn -- a BIG help for our economy. Almost at breakeven at 40% now.
T168
- Roosevelt declares on DeGaulle!
- Mao declares on Roosevelt! This should block America from actually reaching France, so we will not have to close our borders (and lose our trade) with Roosevelt. And the AIs wasting units fighting one another is fine with me.
T169
- Capital completes the Pyramids -- in 1090 AD! I revolt to Rep -- with our current specialists (and settled great people), this should boost our 0% science from 12 bpt to about 45 bpt. The civic costs an extra 3 gpt, so we should come out well ahead.
- Churchill completes Shwedagon Paya, using our traded gold.
T170
- Gandhi gets a great prophet.
- Theology is now available from Gandhi, Roosevelt, and Churchill.
- Our peace with France is over, and he moves an LB next to Paris which only has an axe. I planned for this, though, and a Combat 2 elephant arrives this turn to reinforce. Don't get any wild ideas, DeGaulle.
- We found the city of StoneFish in the south to block possible AI expansion into our backlines. It costs us about 5 gpt overall, less than I expected actually.
T171
- Roosevelt gets a great general and a great scientist.
- Gandhi builds the Taoist shrine. Taoism has about 2% global spread right now.
- Christianity spreads in StoneFish. Now we will need a missionary there. Only Mao is Christian, and he is not the founder apparently (holy city shown as unknown).
T172
- DeGaulle adopts Bureaucracy.
- Capital will spawn a GP next turn: 40% GE, 38% Prophet, 22% Scientist
T173
- We get a Great Scientist! Not that a prophet (Confu shrine) or GE (instant wonder or eventual Mining Inc) would have been bad news, exactly.
- Roosevelt takes the western-most Chinese city.
- Taoism spreads to Marseilles. Now another city needs a Confu missionary.
- Churchill founds Liverpool somewhere, his 10th city.
- Marseilles has reclaimed its inner ring tile from China, thankfully.
- Gandhi will now trade Engineering.
I have left the GS and our 1 Confu missionary unmoved for discussion as to how to use them.
The missionary could go to any of StoneFish (Christian), Marseilles (Taoist, needs culture badly), or InGems (no religion, needs culture). We can still hope for free spread to InGems, and StoneFish is brand new and can probably wait a bit. I would use the missionary in Marseilles. But InGems would also be a decent use, and has zero chance of failure.
The GS would bulb about 2/3 of Printing Press, 1674 beakers. If settled in Capital he would generate 18 bpt right now, and 27 bpt after Oxford is built. (About another 13 turns for the unis, then about 7 turns to build in Capital, so 20 turns from now.) Plus an extra 1.5 hammers with Bur. Given that we have to win by space race, I think settling looks like by far the best option. We should "pay back" the lost bulb beakers in about 70 turns, at a zero rate of interest/present value; Printing Press is not urgent right now and will provide modest benefit, so overall I think we will be ahead of a bulb in about 75 turns or so. The game is easily going to last a lot longer than that. And the extra hammers never hurt either.
We have some possible tech trade options, as none of Churchill, Gandhi, or Roosevelt has Education yet. We could break our monopoly to get Engineering from Gandhi and Aesthetics, Theology, Compass, 440 gold from Roosevelt. That is four decent-to-good techs, plus enough gold to run 100% science and finish Lib in 2 turns (Chemistry would be available, since we would have Engineering). We could even shift Capital to try to get Notre Dame (10 turns to build), although the tech being tradeable probably means Gandhi is nearly done with the wonder. There is also a strong likelihood that all three AIs will have post-Aesthetics techs available the following turn, which we could try to grab from Churchill with Edu, although there would be minimal value unless we could somehow get one of Literature or Drama first so Music could be obtained.
Or we could hold on to our Education monopoly. With a settled GS we should finish Liberalism at 0% science in about 8 turns, about half that time if we spent some gold. (I have been running 0% science until we have about 250 gold, then 1 turn at 100%.)
Another option is to gift a tech or two to Mao and try to get him happy enough to trade Aesthetics and Compass. Then we could get additional post-Aesthetics techs from the big 3 AIs. We could also wait until Gandhi gets Guilds (Churchill and Roosevelt already know it) and try to pick that up from Education along with the rest.
Lots of possible approaches now for tech trades. At least this means we are getting some help from the AIs.
We have a settler almost in position to found our marble city. Improve the fur tiles first for immediate commerce. Capital and CopperRice are getting a couple muskets done -- send one as garrison for marble and the other to the west for whichever city seems to need it most. (Paris, probably, freeing up the units there.) We should build a couple more workers and send them to prepare the iron/wines site in the north, then a settler (Capital) and a musket (CopperRice) for the iron/wines site. Then some more muskets for the west. But that is just my suggestions -- I think we need to claim that site before France's culture makes it impossible. We can settle the rest of the southeast and then start on islands after that -- foreign trade routes are helping a lot, but an island or two for off-shore TR would be helpful.
We do need some more military in general. Our overall power rating stinks. We need a bunch of muskets as solid defenders to up our power rating, then hopefully some knights once we have Guilds. We should build the stronger units, even though it takes longer; we are paying unit maintenance so quality is better than quantity as we are not immediately threatened.
We also still need a ton of infra. Once the universities are (finally) done, we need some courthouses, markets, granaries, forges...not exactly in that order, maybe. Paris, InGems, and Marseilles need some culture as well (I have a Confu monastery building in Paris, wish we had Drama for cheap Cultural theaters). We also still need more workers. StoneFish needs the rice farmed and grass hill mines once borders pop (2 more turns). We also need to improve the dye tile, even though it is not in any city's BFC.
So many needs, so few hammers. Although IvoryBeef and SugarPig are starting to shape up into solid production cities. Keep improving SugarPig, especially, it is going to be great once we get it properly improved everywhere.
The save is uploaded. Here is the turnset log:
Spoiler:
Here is your Session Turn Log from 1030 AD to 1130 AD:
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant (9.60) vs Mao Zedong's Longbowman (6.60)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Combat Odds: 84.6%
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Extra Combat: -20%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Longbowman is hit for 24 (76/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant is hit for 16 (84/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant is hit for 16 (68/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant is hit for 16 (52/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant is hit for 16 (36/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Longbowman is hit for 24 (52/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Longbowman is hit for 24 (28/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Longbowman is hit for 24 (4/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant is hit for 16 (20/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Longbowman is hit for 24 (0/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant has defeated Mao Zedong's Longbowman!
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Catapult (5.00) vs Mao Zedong's Axeman (5.00)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Combat Odds: 63.7%
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Catapult is hit for 20 (80/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Catapult is hit for 20 (60/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Catapult is hit for 20 (40/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Axeman is hit for 20 (80/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Axeman is hit for 20 (60/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Catapult is hit for 20 (20/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Axeman is hit for 20 (40/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Catapult is hit for 20 (0/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Axeman has defeated Catherine's Catapult!
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Catapult (5.00) vs Mao Zedong's Axeman (4.50)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Combat Odds: 79.6%
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Axeman is hit for 20 (70/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Axeman is hit for 20 (50/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Catapult is hit for 19 (81/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Axeman is hit for 20 (30/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Catapult is hit for 19 (62/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Catapult is hit for 19 (43/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Catapult is hit for 19 (24/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant (9.60) vs Mao Zedong's Spearman (5.77)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Combat Odds: 96.2%
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Extra Combat: -20%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Combat: -25%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Combat: +100%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Spearman is hit for 24 (54/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Spearman is hit for 24 (30/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Spearman is hit for 24 (6/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Spearman is hit for 24 (0/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant has defeated Mao Zedong's Spearman!
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant (9.60) vs Mao Zedong's Chariot (2.39)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Combat Odds: 100.0%
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Extra Combat: -20%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Extra Combat: +20%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Combat: -50%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant is hit for 11 (89/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Chariot is hit for 35 (43/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Chariot is hit for 35 (8/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Chariot is hit for 35 (0/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant has defeated Mao Zedong's Chariot!
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant 2 (CopIronRice) (8.35) vs Mao Zedong's Chariot (2.39)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Combat Odds: 100.0%
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Extra Combat: -20%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Extra Combat: +20%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Combat: -50%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Chariot is hit for 34 (44/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Chariot is hit for 34 (10/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Chariot is hit for 34 (0/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant 2 (CopIronRice) has defeated Mao Zedong's Chariot!
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant 1 (Capital) (9.25) vs Mao Zedong's Chariot (2.39)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Combat Odds: 100.0%
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Extra Combat: -30%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Extra Combat: +20%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Combat: -50%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Chariot is hit for 35 (43/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant 1 (Capital) is hit for 11 (78/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Chariot is hit for 35 (8/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Chariot is hit for 35 (0/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's War Elephant 1 (Capital) has defeated Mao Zedong's Chariot!
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Michiel de Ruyter (Chariot) (4.40) vs Mao Zedong's Axeman (1.00)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Combat Odds: 100.0%
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Class Attack: -100%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Axeman is hit for 30 (10/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Axeman is hit for 30 (0/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Michiel de Ruyter (Chariot) has defeated Mao Zedong's Axeman!
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Horse Archer 2 (Capital) (6.60) vs Mao Zedong's Axeman (1.00)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Combat Odds: 100.0%
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: (Combat: -25%)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Mao Zedong's Axeman is hit for 31 (0/100HP)
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Catherine's Horse Archer 2 (Capital) has defeated Mao Zedong's Axeman!
Turn 163, 1030 AD: Zheng He (Great Merchant) has been born in Pataliputra (Gandhi)!
Turn 164, 1040 AD: Mao Zedong adopts Vassalage!
Turn 165, 1050 AD: Catherine's War Elephant (9.60) vs Mao Zedong's Longbowman (6.00)
Turn 165, 1050 AD: Combat Odds: 91.0%
Turn 165, 1050 AD: (Extra Combat: -20%)
Turn 165, 1050 AD: Mao Zedong's Longbowman is hit for 25 (75/100HP)
Turn 165, 1050 AD: Mao Zedong's Longbowman is hit for 25 (50/100HP)
Turn 165, 1050 AD: Mao Zedong's Longbowman is hit for 25 (25/100HP)
Turn 165, 1050 AD: Mao Zedong's Longbowman is hit for 25 (0/100HP)
Turn 165, 1050 AD: Catherine's War Elephant has defeated Mao Zedong's Longbowman!
Turn 165, 1050 AD: Churchill adopts Bureaucracy!
Turn 165, 1050 AD: Mao Zedong has completed The Hanging Gardens!
Turn 166, 1060 AD: The borders of Paris have expanded!
Turn 166, 1060 AD: Kobo-Daishi (Great Prophet) has been born in London (Churchill)!
Turn 167, 1070 AD: You have made peace with Mao Zedong!
Turn 167, 1070 AD: The borders of Marseilles have expanded!
Turn 167, 1070 AD: Roosevelt has declared war on De Gaulle!
Turn 167, 1070 AD: Mao Zedong has declared war on Roosevelt!
Turn 168, 1080 AD: Catherine has completed The Pyramids!
Turn 168, 1080 AD: Churchill has completed Shwedagon Paya!
Turn 169, 1090 AD: The revolution has begun!!!
Turn 169, 1090 AD: Catherine adopts Representation!
Turn 169, 1090 AD: The anarchy is over! Your government is re-established.
Turn 169, 1090 AD: Tsongkhapa (Great Prophet) has been born in Delhi (Gandhi)!
Turn 170, 1100 AD: StoneFish has been founded.
Turn 170, 1100 AD: Christianity has spread in StoneFish.
Turn 170, 1100 AD: Sun Tzu (Great General) has been born in New York (Roosevelt)!
Turn 170, 1100 AD: Al-Khwarizmi (Great Scientist) has been born in Washington (Roosevelt)!
Turn 170, 1100 AD: Gandhi has completed The Dai Miao!
Turn 171, 1110 AD: SugarPigRiceBan has grown to size 5.
Turn 171, 1110 AD: Gandhi has 80 gold available for trade.
Turn 171, 1110 AD: You are the worst enemy of Mao Zedong.
Turn 171, 1110 AD: De Gaulle adopts Bureaucracy!
Turn 172, 1120 AD: CopIronRice has grown to size 9.
Turn 172, 1120 AD: InGemsRiceBan has grown to size 7.
Turn 172, 1120 AD: Churchill has 210 gold available for trade.
Turn 172, 1120 AD: Roosevelt is the worst enemy of Mao Zedong.
Turn 172, 1120 AD: The borders of CornTwinGemsSto are about to expand.
Turn 172, 1120 AD: Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (Great Scientist) has been born in Capital (Catherine)!
Turn 172, 1120 AD: The borders of CornTwinGemsSto have expanded!
Turn 172, 1120 AD: You have constructed a Library in InGemsRiceBan. Work has now begun on a Barracks.
Turn 172, 1120 AD: Taoism has spread in Marseilles.
Turn 172, 1120 AD: Churchill has founded Liverpool.
Turn 172, 1120 AD: Xian (Mao Zedong) has been captured by the American Empire!!!
Turn 173, 1130 AD: Switch InGems to gems mine
Turn 173, 1130 AD: Paris has grown to size 8.
Turn 173, 1130 AD: Roosevelt has 440 gold available for trade.
Turn 173, 1130 AD: Gandhi will trade Engineering
I believe Sleepless is up next for more economic recovery and expansion. (Unless some war happens to occur, of course. )
Managed a very quick look at the save and am at work so don't want to write to much as I'll likely lose it.
Tech trades. Quick thoughts. Trade Gunpowder to Roo for compass/aesth/440g. Ghandi has it so not worth keeping. Edu I would prefer to wait until we can get engineering/guilds and we decide what we want from Lib. I would prefer Astro with gold etc we should be able to get optics in time if we trade for compass. Much prefer a better tech but perhaps thats the best for now.
Now where do we go from here. If we aren't going to war I would prefer to rex the rest of the land as quick as possible. Otherwise the cities will still be covered in fallout etc and of no use by the time we set off to space. So would prefer more mil/settlers/workers. There are some nice sites offshore which a galleon would reach quicker than a galley hinting more towards astro from lib. Also are we going to get the payback from building cottages everywhere rather than farms/workshops? You probably no by now I don't build that many cottages. Rather aquire them by other means.
Well told I wasn't logged in for the last post hence the short posts so sorry about them.
Settle GP in capital or academy elsewhere. Probably best to settle if we go all out for a fast rex. Tile improvements. Its best to get food resources up asap unless we need something really fast which we don't. Alot of our cities don't have much production hence my preference for workshops rather than cottages so need to know what route people would prefer to go.
Not sure how rising seas work so could end up losing cottages anyway. Missionary would send to iron/gems. Any city building infra should be converted asap for the 25% bonus where possible. So have to add missionaries to the list of everything else we need to do.
None of the AIs have Gunpowder. Gandhi does not show as "Wanting" Gunpowder because he does not have the prereq Guilds. So don't trade away our Gunpowder.
On cottages, I like them (in case that wasn't obvious ). We need more science to get through the end of the tech tree for our space ship techs. It needs to come from somewhere, and the main choices are generally cottages or specialists. Cottages tend to be best over the longer term, unless you can really get the specialists going. We do have Rep from our just-built Pyramids (special post-1000 AD edition! ). Where else will the science come from if not from one of these?
I agree that we need to settle more land -- we have quite a few very attractive sites available in the north, the southeast, and on the islands. The top AIs are continuing to expand and plant new cities -- we should as well.
As for warfare...who would we attack? Maybe Mao again, especially if it looks like Roosevelt is going to crush him. We should grab a share of the spoils in that case. Everyone else has military tech almost equal to ours (we have Gunpowder) or even better than we have (Churchill and Roosevelt have Guilds for knights, Churchill and Gandhi have Engineering for pikes, trebs, and faster roads).
Astro from Liberalism would be good, if we can manage to get through Optics in time. We would need to preserve our Education monopoly, obviously. Maybe see if we can get Mao happy enough to trade by gifting him Paper? Then use Philo to get Compass (and Aesthetics) from him? Not sure it would work.
Anyway, I think we could use another turnset (or two or three) of economic recovery and new cities. (Counter-purpose goals, I admit, at least in the short term.) But maybe other approaches will work as well or better.
As much as I would like to attack Mao can't see it happening at least in the near future so looks like I'll try and settle a couple of cities and build some basic infra. Was trying to see whether Ghandi had gunpowder or not but as I said only very quick look so guilds is the missing link. I would prefer astro from Lib and not give up Edu till we can get guilds/engineering for it.
I'm assuming Roo won't make much headway against Mao although we did kill off quite a few of his troops. Have to see on that one. Tech trades with Mao I can't see us having much hope (though were not his worse enemy anymore ) plus it will annoy Roo for trading with worse enemy probably? So I'd rather not but what does everybody else think?
So decisions that need to be made. What do we want from Lib. Rex or war although we could join in a dogpile of Mao I don't think we are set up for a war now. Scientists or cottages although a mixture of the two is probably best. We don't have a lot of great cottagble river land though.
I am not sure how well Roosevelt will do against Mao. He did take one Chinese city so far, but Mao has been moving a lot of units around. Mostly protective LBs, which should be fairly tough. But Roosevelt should have knights, so we will have to see.
Yeah, trading with Mao is not a great option. We do not need additional -diplo with Roosevelt, and Mao tends to refuse to trade anything not already known by everyone. None of the AIs know Stalin so he does not count, but if DeGaulle is missing a tech then I do not think Mao would trade it. So waiting until we can grab Guilds and Engineering, plus all the other stuff, is likely best. Or until one AI completes Edu themselves, then grab what we can for it.
For cottages, we do have some river land around Marseilles. Need to clean fallout first, and of course it would get pillaged immediately if another war breaks out. But there is some good land there. And we should be able to add cottages at TwinGems and SugarPig as the cities grow, even if they are not river-side cottages. We can also get some more commerce from resources -- I worked on getting the three gems cleaned and hooked up, and we can add the furs in the north soon as well. Island cities can work a lot of coast for commerce.
We should run scientists wherever we have the food. With Rep a pair of library scientists is 15 bpt. Paris is currently running 2 scientists, and Capital of course is doing so with the Academy. Once the rest of the unis finish and we get Oxford up, that will add a nice chunk of beakers. And CopperRice is working some cottages and silk as well -- it is tempting to switch to the plains hill mine, but we need the city to keep growing until it can add the tile.
Once we can get the techs it would be good to add the Heroic Epic in CopperRice to pump more military. Some cheap creative theaters in Paris, InGems, and Marseilles would also be useful if we can get our hands on Drama. And we should think about where we want to put Moai -- maybe one of the island cities? We have stone, but it will still need a certain amount of hammers to get it built.
Roosevelt will trade Theology + Compass + 430W for Gunpowder. With Theology we could start The Hagia Sophia (+50% Worker turns) which would take 13t to build without Marble (40 Hpt with Engineer) and we can settle our Marble City in 2t and the remaining 11t should drop to 7t (60 Hpt with Engineer) or 9t total. Even if an AI completes it first, we will get a great 2-3W per Base Hammer payout for failure (up to 440W with just 1t short).
Of course Compass will permit a trade of Optics with Gandhi next turn. I'm assuming his 20% Monopoly trading threshold will permit him to trade it, since he has not yet contacted Stalin, so 1 of 5 Civs know Optics, thus he will just barely be willing to trade it. I can't conceive of another good reason for him to keep it, since it unlocks no Great Wonders. Assuming Gandhi has not partially researched Education, he should be close to willing to trade Optics (936B) + Engineering (1560B) for Education (2808B). Our 400+ Wealth should be enough to make the deal, since might be short, but not by much. Note that Engineering should be moderately discounted, since both Churchill and Roosvelt have it as well; both Optics and Education are known by 1 Civ and thus command a premium and since Optics is only 1/3 the size of Education that fact will be strongly in our favor. Once we have Optics (possibly next turn), the way is clear to gain Astronomy via 1st to Liberalism quite soon after (Possibly in 2t via Roosevelt's 430W in this turn's trade and the 100% Research rate that will permit).
Future Plans:
We need Guilds (Knight and Grocer) and Banking (Banks) for improved Economy. We need to build a Market (Happiness), Grocer (Health) and Bank in each high Commerce City, after Courthouse (always 100% effective where as Research and Wealth building depend on their respective slider for their effectiveness).
We may need to divert a bit from a bee-line to Rocketry to gain a quick Military Technology lead (Cuirassiers or Cossacks) and neutralize Mao Zedong. Rifling for Rifleman would be on the beeline to Rocketry, but we may not want to wait that long to neutralize Mao.
Now that we have Representation, we should be running Scientists in every City with spare Growth that is not critical for a growing our Population. Otherwise we should build Cottages in Commerce Cities and build Workshops in Hammer Cities.
Do we need to neutralise Mao? We have so much land and islands we can settle now, peaceful growth should be our focus and making sure our power doesn't drop. If we get an opportunity we may want to attack Mao in the future but not sure diverting to a military tech is worthwhile yet.
Hagia Sophia would be a great wonder, think we should try for it.
Once we get Compass, harbours in coastal cities would be good.
Do we need to neutralise Mao? We have so much land and islands we can settle now, peaceful growth should be our focus and making sure our power doesn't drop. If we get an opportunity we may want to attack Mao in the future but not sure diverting to a military tech is worthwhile yet.
Wise words Ozbenno! Perhaps, the time for War with our neighbors is past. We should focus our war-like aggression on our true enemy, Stalin!
No, we don't need to neutralize Mao Zedong. We would need to build enough high quality military units to increase our Power rating so much that Mao Zedong would dare not attack us ever again. We would also need Open Borders with Mao Zedong to clear all Fallout within his Cultural borders.
However, he does, presumably, have some nice Cities and will never be a Technology trading partner, so it might be better to neutralize him sooner rather than later.
On the other hand, since we have Peace with Mao Zedong now, we might as try to keep it that way as long as we have good City sites to expand our Empire into with our Space Colony and World Fallout Clearing goals in mind.
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Only the one cat was lost, although we have a lot of hurt units. Mao still wants Marseilles for peace.
I blame Mao -- his having a spy in this area would explain how he knew TwinGems was weakly defended. It is unusual for an AI to bypass a city like he did, and this would explain it. No actual proof, though.
for your turnset haphazard1.
