Sorry, real life got in the way and I was away from the internet for a bit... I'll try to reply to some comments but if my feedback is out-of-date, then just ignore it for the outdated topics.
Looking forward, we'll have to move our Oz flotilla past Mansa before DoPing. Dhoom, are you unable to do any of your testing on what it will take to capture Oz?
I'm certain. I won't have Civ 4 access until after the game is over and even then, I'm not sure when that will be. There should be saved games attached to this thread earlier on where I put in test units, but I'm not sure how to adapt them... we'd need units on Galleons... maybe you can use the World Builder to create Galleons on a square and then turn the square into Ocean? Maybe you first add the Galleons, exit the World Builder, re-enter the World Builder and then turn the square into Ocean?
I'm not really sure otherwise how to reuse my saved games... but... we'd probably want a new test setup anyway... a weaker Wizard, no need for 40 or more units if you ask me... just some Longbowmen that mimic the promos on the Barb Archers, a Barb Rifleman with the same promos, a bunch of War Elephants on Galleons optionally with some promotions, then save the game... probably end the turn 5 times and then resave it... just make sure that you start the game with "Random Seed on Reload" or whatever... I think that it has to be a Custom Game to set it up that way...
But really, 30 War Elephants should really be overkill. I mean, that Drill I promotion on the Wizard is garbage, so each attack, minus a few unlucky ones, should damage the defenders. 6 War Elephants each for 3 Longbowmen (18) and 12 War Elephants for the Rifleman... even with terrible random number generation, those odds should do, given the Barbs' promos and lack of Cultural Defences.
When we do attack the Wizard, a couple of junky War Elephants can attack first. Once the Wizard is at 10 or less Health, we can follow-up with amphibiously-promoted War Elephants with the hopes of making the kill before the Longbowmen even come up as defenders... but failing that, we might not even need to kill off the Longbowmen... we just need to then get the Longbowmen weak enough for the Wizard to come up as the defender again and we'd then attack with an amphibious War Elephant again.
babybluepants said:
I think that it gives us flexibility with the Cultural Slider, which could give us a bit of extra Happiness at the cost of Gold if we need it, say, when a war is almost finished and we need a few more turns of staying at war while undergoing heavy War Weariness. The ability to build Theatres will not be used.
babybluepants said:
We might also end up capturing the SH from Zulu.
Self-built Monuments will stay post-Astronomy but Stonehenge-based Monuments will not exist, unfortunately.
LowtherCastle said:
I noticed the hub spamming. Sucks, but that's life. They won't have many units or walls and hopefully will be mostly flat. Actually, it might be easier to capture them than build them, except for the resistance times.
As long as a City has at some point grown past Size 1, it won't auto-raze. A City that is roughly Size 4 or smaller will only be in revolt for a few turns, so it's arguably easier to capture and wait for said borders to expand then to send in a Settler, especially if we'll otherwise be at war and will need to protect said Settlers.
LowtherCastle said:
On the trebs: I think I'll settle the next GG in the city producing trebs fastest. Building 5/2XP trebs is exactly what we need most right now, imo.
Yeah, settling Great Generals will probably make the most sense. It's not like we REALLY need multiple Super Medics (and on a map like this one we don't technically need any of them, as units can just heal on Galleons that sail out to neutral waters or into captured [but also reasonably well-defended] Cities).
LowtherCastle said:
Bbp, maybe you could check the AP info on how soon a vote will come up.
One of the Victory Screens (F8 or F9 screens... click on one of the "tabs" at the bottom of the page) should give you info on how many turns it will be until the next Apostolic Palace vote, as well as give you info on which AI (I'm not sure how it works for AI Teams) will vote for which AP leader.
As long as not every single player in the game owns a City with the AP's Religion, we can't auto-lose. As a result, we may want to consider one-City-challenging Asoka if all of the other AIs DO have the AP Religion, just to avoid being defeated to an AP Victory vote by the AIs.
LowtherCastle said:
What we need to do is cease fire the turn before the vote, then re-declare the turn of the vote (or something like that).
You can wait until the vote comes up. Cease Fire on the turn that you vote IF the vote is for peace. On the following turn, the vote should auto-fail/auto-cancel and you can redeclare war. That way, you won't need to take a Cease Fire unless the relevant voting option is proposed, which allows us the flexibility to Cease Fire in the future when needed.
LowtherCastle said:
Because the AP is Buddhist and we have 6 cities, including Washingtion, with buddhism, so we can NOT afford the -5 for refusing to abide by a resolution.
Yes, definitely do NOT Defy an Apostolic Palace resolution. They're easy enough to handle and the only one to worry about is if every AI has Buddhism. In an AI Team game, likely each AI has to have Buddhism in one of their Cities, but there may be some special rule where only one AI on each AI Team has to have a City with Buddhism in one of their Cities... I'm not certain exactly how the Team dynamics affect the AP Victory vote.
Hah, it would be interesting if we were to WIN via an AP vote, but only after the Wizard were killed. I don't see it happening, though, with the hatred levels that we have been cultivating (refusing Demands, declaring war, etc), so don't even consider it as a possibility and just focus on making sure that we have at least 1 AI that is alive who has 0 Cities that contain Buddhism.
babybluepants said:
I would delete the WB now. Don't give them a free battle win.
They don't get Great General points or any Experience Points... but do they get War Success points for capturing a Work Boat?
If nothing else, it would be confirmation about a potential Trireme attacking the Work Boat by seeing our Work Boat die.
babybluepants said:
Liz and Genghis also gained CS this turn. Is it possible someone bribed them?
An AI shouldn't be able to be bribed into war when in Hands Full mode. I'm not sure what would happen if, in between turns, they went out Hands Full mode and then an AI Team with a later turn bribed them, so it's theoretically possible but probably highly unlikely.
That said, they could have traded for Civil Service or else received a partially-researched Civil Service in trade for another tech which may or may not also have been partially-researched.
babybluepants said:
I guess it's some sort of dogpile move. It's unfortunate.
Well, Elizabeth/Genghis had already planned to attack us, but us also being at war may have influenced their decision of WHEN to attack, based on relative power ratios of theirs, ours, and our war enemies'.
LowtherCastle said:
because I already picked off GK's scout at Ahmedebad.
What happened to Elizabeth's Scout near us? Did it get teleported out of our territory near the Barb City or maybe to the north of Ivory City?
Regardless, we may want to keep a War Elephant or two around IVory City (I can't look at the reatl game to see what the unit situation is like) until we can get a Galleon or two into position to try and cut off any naval approach our way.
LowtherCastle said:
If GK and Liz happen to have different values for when they'll start talking, then they will also start talking at different times, even if we only kill units of one of them. So we get to cease fire as soon as one will talk.
Will they both be available to talk at the same time, at the "minimum" talk level or will we actually have to keep asking both of them because one might talk while the other one won't talk?
LowtherCastle said:
We already have one capture and the wb is a guaranteed second.
Does capturing a Work Boat count for War Success? If so, that's neat.
LowtherCastle said:
I think his SoD is moving on us...the question is, which spoke? We'll have to monitor its progress.
To Asoka's area if we still have the Maginot Line in place. Now might be a good time to try opening and closing the Maginot Line in the hopes of luring him one way and then the next to buy us some extra turns. He might just beeline Asoka's area regardless, but it can't hurt to try, other than maybe accidentally getting some Barb units from the Barb City to come our way.
Plus, I can get Liz's wb at Panama on T+2. That's already 4+4 for us. Furthermore, Liz just recently captured that barb city west of Pigs. Hopefully it's not heavily protected, but who knows? In any case, it's probably not getting any culture yet. If I can capture it, that'll be at least 4+10 more. I'm not sure about siege weapons, though. If that gives them a war success if the siege retreats. Guess I should check that.
Can someone test this or give me a test set-up that works?
