SGOTM 17 - Kakumeika

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Aachen is a weak Bureaucratic capital, at least with respect to Commerce. It's base hammer and whipping hammer potential is reasonably good.

I have changed my mind about Bureaucracy. In my opinion, the +2 XP and especially the extra free units provided by Vassalage are a significantly better.

I'd prefer we use our next Great General to settle a second Great Military Instructor in our Heroic Epic city Woodsville. This will allow Woodville to produce a 9-XP Trebuchet almost every turn with Slavery. (It is producing a Trebuchet nearly every turn with Caste System and a Golden Age.)

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[mabraham]

My only concern about the conclusion that we don't need Astronomy is we do not know where all of Peter's cities are. The scenario designer could have arranged Peter to start with a city (or second settler) accessible only via Astronomy from his other cities. An alternative is starting with same Astronomy only accessible land with a Warrior next to a Barbarian city without defenders. In this scenario, we can capture all of Peter's cities without Astronomy except one.

Sun Tzu Wu

It is possible... but the worry does seem a little Chicken Little to me. Given Kaitzilla and STW are skeptical about Civil Service, and OR is still useful to our economy to get buildings in captured cities whipped a bit faster, I am also happy to defer acquiring Civil Service and/or Theology until we are sure that we will not want to bulb out Astro. The relevant concern is that we do not want to unlock the Paper bulb if we might still want to bulb Astro.

As STW says, we should then settle future GGs to augment Woodsville.

 

[bcool]

I strongly disagree with settling future GG.

I would much rather have GG attach to 10 units in the field for 2 xp across those units than get 2 xp on 10 units produced late in the game in Woodsville.

Plus a GG attached in the field can give the unit it attaches to special promos. Nothing beats a treb with 2 movement! move and bombard and keep up with the knights!

Even if we don't spread the xp out to 10 units, 4-7 more 3 CR trebs are much better than a few more xp on units that we don't even know if they are going to make it to the front in time to make a difference.

I don't by STW argument about needing astronomy. Is there any evidence that Peter started with 2 cities from opening demographics? How can you assume that he had one city isolated by ocean if there is no evidence of it. Theocracy is better and cheaper for us. Theocracy takes less maintenance then Organized religion. Gold is important for us.

And if you think settling the GG in woodsville is the right call think about an extra 2 xp in all cities with hinduism. Surely that beats saving a few pop in whips in the few cities that we still are building anything in.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Test Game still at t141 with terrain updated to that known by t151. Also revealed/unrevealed plots updated to match t151, so the test game map and real game map can be easily compared.

This includes know terrain in both Churchill and Barbarian areas revealed through t151. Also, Churchill's cities have been moved and defenders set to what we know in t151; Populations were set slightly smaller as we can expect 1-2P growth per city in 10t of play of the test game.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Kaitzilla]

Thanks for feedback so far.

I gather we abused Mansa and Qin by gifting Hari to Mansa. Where is Tokugawa's stack now? T147 note says near Guangzhou, but no sign of it now. We might want the same trick with Nanjing and Tokugawa. Timing of the gift with Tokugawa close borders then DOW will be tricky.

I must be missing the point with flipping Qin to Hinduism via gifting Trojan Horse. If we have to get him down to three cities for the gift, we would already have enough votes to block adverse outcomes. If Qin already has owned Trojan Horse and so will take it back automatically, that makes sense as a T152 backup play. We do have to burn, though, so trying the Hangzhou revolt seems a no-brainer to me.

If we get a GArtist (or such) T152, fuse with scientist for second Golden Age?

Otherwise, I like bcool's plan of getting Civil Service and Theology (by trading with Churchill and Tokugawa now) and switching in three turns to running Police State, Bureaucracy, Slavery, Mercantilism and Theocracy for the end game.

Accordingly, plan to settle next GG in Aachen, add stable, for 9XP knights.

Oh ya, Qin used to own the city, so might take it back if we cease fire now.

Then we restart the war and flip him to Hindu and not have to worry about the AP vote going against us.

Or we can just capture 2 more cities like you said
That should just barely give us enough votes to block a 10 turn forced peace treaty.
That hilltop city with the 2 defenders looks like it will be getting a pikeman inbetween turns.

If the spy trying the revolt at 0% fails T152, it will be a bloodbath taking the hilltop castle city to get the AP vote fixed with that added Pike. So I still like the temporary cease fire and giving Trojan Horse back T151 for a Hindu flip attempt.



Not really worried about Astro anymore. If Peter is mainly behind a hidden ocean-only water barrier and still expanded like that, I'll eat my hat.
I'm in favor of Police State, Vassalage, Slavery, Mercantilism, and Theocracy for end game before the Golden Age ends.
Bureau bonus is too weak compared to +2xp for everyone. And we will be whipping every city again soon down to ashses that aren't producing big time The extra irrigated farms are still nice though.



I found Toku's SoD in an old screenshot of T146. It was in Gangzhou and had enough to cause problems unless dealt with at the start of Toku war:
6 Horse Archers (4 of them combat II)
2 Catapults
1 Chariot

We can indeed abuse Mansa again and lure the Toku stack to whatever city we give Mansa.
It would be a repeat of what happened to Qin



We can get a Peter galley out in 2 turns by moving 2 workers onto that forest 2E of the city this turn. They can chop the forest next turn because the city will pop borders with the free artist specialist.

Then we can build another galley and whip it at Size 2 thanks to golden age hammers

After that, maybe Granary?



Anyway, the general PPP that Mabraham released earlier looks overall sounds good to me.
Clobber Qin, don't let the AP burn us, and get an army moving for Peter's head.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Page 122 of our SGOTM16 thread discusses what we can get from a Great Merchant trade mission.

Looks like we need to grow our capital to Size 11? and road to Mansa's city before we can do an optimal trade mission and get maybe 1300
It is Size 6 right now.


I'll try to organize a photo dump of the Real Game T151 today to help ease various confusions (mostly mine , <3 pictures)

 

[mabraham]

Oh ya, Qin used to own the city, so might take it back if we cease fire now.

Then we restart the war and flip him to Hindu and not have to worry about the AP vote going against us.

Or we can just capture 2 more cities like you said

We don't need both cities, unless Chengdu gets a spread. Chengdu does not have Buddhism. If Chengdu does not spread, then with our expected growths we don't even need Hangzhou, but we can't be sure Chengdu will not spread T152-3 and have votes that count.

That should just barely give us enough votes to block a 10 turn forced peace treaty.

We are already at the tipping point - see F8 vote screen. Ripping 20 away from Qin just seals the deal.

That hilltop city with the 2 defenders looks like it will be getting a pikeman inbetween turns.

Good point, that's awkward.

If the spy trying the revolt at 0% fails T152, it will be a bloodbath taking the hilltop castle city to get the AP vote fixed with that added Pike. So I still like the temporary cease fire and giving Trojan Horse back T151 for a Hindu flip attempt.

We should certainly do this if the T152 revolt fails, but there is no rush to do it pre-emptively. IBTT151-2 the vote will be proposed (peace with Qin, we presume). T152 we try the revolt, and assume it fails for the purpose of planning. If there's a pike built, then we give up on rushing to take Hangzhou. If Chengdu has spread, do the arithmetic given our other Buddhist city pop growths and decide if taking Chengdu is enough. Finally, we can stil CF T151, return TH to Qin, and flip him to Hinduism. This will halve his vote just before it is counted. No need to do it before the vote is proposed!

Not really worried about Astro anymore. If Peter is mainly behind a hidden ocean-only water barrier and still expanded like that, I'll eat my hat.
I'm in favor of Police State, Vassalage, Slavery, Mercantilism, and Theocracy for end game before the Golden Age ends.
Bureau bonus is too weak compared to +2xp for everyone. And we will be whipping every city again soon down to ashses that aren't producing big time The extra irrigated farms are still nice though.

OK, no Bureau. Vassalage it is.

I am happy giving up on the chance of needing Astro. bcool's point about the improbability of STW's hypothetical scenario going unnoticed in the early demographics was telling, I thought. So we will trade Music (I hope) for Theology with Toku.

I found Toku's SoD in an old screenshot of T146. It was in Gangzhou and had enough to cause problems unless dealt with at the start of Toku war:
6 Horse Archers (4 of them combat II)
2 Catapults
1 Chariot

OK, nice to know. Dealing with it is probably out of scope for my set, but knowing not to expect 30 units lurking is nice

We can get a Peter galley out in 2 turns by moving 2 workers onto that forest 2E of the city this turn. They can chop the forest next turn because the city will pop borders with the free artist specialist.

Then we can build another galley and whip it at Size 2 thanks to golden age hammers

Ya, something like that.

After that, maybe Granary?

Yeah, I guess. That will probably speed up the fourth and fifth boats, if those prove useful.

Anyway, the general PPP that Mabraham released earlier looks overall sounds good to me.
Clobber Qin, don't let the AP burn us, and get an army moving for Peter's head.

Cheers!

 

[mabraham]

Page 122 of our SGOTM16 thread discusses what we can get from a Great Merchant trade mission.

Looks like we need to grow our capital to Size 11? and road to Mansa's city before we can do an optimal trade mission and get maybe 1300
It is Size 6 right now.

Thanks! Growth in Aachen it is! We can whip it back down once the second mission goes through. Find a bored worker some time, too.

 

[mabraham]

I had been hoping to work on a more detailed PPP this evening, but my brain has already checked out too far for attempting that task. I will do so tomorrow evening, instead. Hopefully play the following evening after feedback.

There will not be much turn by turn detail in the PPP! I suspect I will probably need to stop and re-plan cities once the GAge lapses and we know how various details of the plan are developing.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I think the victory turn will be T200 or earlier. With 60~70 turns left, maybe we can slow down the rate to 12~15 turns per week.

If we take a look on the critical path, Peter and Churchill must be in it. With more exploration, we may know exactly what options we have.

1. If teleporting is the only way, the units for Churchille will not be back. This means that we may split our units after Qin is conquered, 2/3 for Churchill and 1/3 for Japan.
2. ALL AIs can get feaudalizm soon if they will, so we don't need to rush Peter right now. The time to attack Peter should be close to the time when Qin is conquered. This also means that we can prepare the units for Peter after Sury is conquered.
3. Therefore, the precedent critical point is Qin. All our units of the next 10~15 turns should cross the channel to Sury's land.
4. After Sury is conquered, some(50% to 70%) of the new units can eliminate Mansa, rally, board on the ferry boat and go to the west.

With the above analysis, the key issues to the final victories are:
1. explore the passage to Peter and Churchill
2. If the ferry boat is the bottleneck, we need to settle a city as early as possible and train the boat close to Peter and Churchill.
3. Don't attack Mansa's capitol. Move the units to Sury's land first

The goals can be set as below:
1. T145~T150 Conquer Sury
2. T160~T170 Conquer Qin
3. T180~T195 Conquer all

But he's one tech away from Feudalism and he's protective. Whipping Treb/LB at his conquered city is still OK I think even if his land is not connected with ours. Delaying the attack on Qin is not a big problem if we can attack Churchill at the same time.

Just with a few more exploration to confirm that teleport is the only way, I think we can get the answer.

=

This is why we need Notre Dame and maybe Dye city soon. BTW, even with some workshop of 1f2h, the happiness problem can also be controlled after we got Guild. We still have a lot of happiness in those small cities like silver city and Pyramids city, so the slavery can at least work for 20~30 turns. That's almost close to the finish time. The faster we whip and win the combat vs Sury/Qin, the less we need Chemistry to contribute additional hammers. The conquered city itself is already good enough to support the final kick. And basically at T170 our core cities will be training galley and knights to make them reach the battle field in time.

I think the chemistry will be viable only under two conditions:
1. Qin researches gunpowder. Then we can steal and bulb with 2 GS
2. We got at least 4 GS. 5 GS is the best. Then we can bulb astronomy, gunpowder and chemistry.
The condition of the second is very difficult to meet, so I still don't like to 2-GS bulb astronomy now.


But it's not at the critical path. We can kill Mansa after the barbrian troops come back. On the other hand, Kumbisaleh will take back the farms soon.
These two cities(Kumbi Saleh and the copper city) has no high food so they cannot help to shorten the critical path. I don't think we need to conquer it now. It is just a distraction from the attck on Sury and delay to get juicy cities from Sury.
We can sign cease fire with Mansa and our units will be kicked out immediately. Then these units can go to Sury's territory at least 5 turns earlier.
Don't we want to gift Mansa the Anvil city? If so, we can do it now.

Is anything Sossos said way back on May 17th wrong? Crystal freaking ball

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

In my opinion, we have twice the number of units needed to finish off Qin. Our northern Forces could use reinforcement, but our southern Forces have twice three times the number units needed to finish off Qin.

Thus, we should transport the already build military units on our southern shore to the northern Front. All military units built in our northern core cities this turn set should go to the Peter Front. The few military units built in captured Suryavarman II or Qin Shi Huang cities can augment our northern Qin front via either Rajavihar or Hangzhou/Guangzhou.

When we capture Qin Shi Huang's Najing, about 2/3 of our forces that were/are engaging Qin Shi Huang forces should move through Tokugawa and teleport to Churchill. The remaining forces can attack Tokugawa from the West (Western Front) while all units being built are diverted to Tokugawa's Eastern Front.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Kaitzilla]

Oh! I see now.

Kagoshima does indeed have a coastal water connection to the central landmass where our Peterlandbridge city and Hade's hammar are located.

So with another city there and a galley, our Peter Units can be invading northern Japan in 3 or 4 turns.


I now agree with shifting future units to Peter immediately. After Peter dies they can easily shift to attack Japan from the north 2 at a time or 4 at a time if we can make 2 galleys.

Might do the pics late tonight. Ran outta time today.

 

[sossos]

Good work STW. So far so good.

Mostly I have no time to play any more in the next 3 weeks. I'm involved in a tough project and may be on travel again.

I find that I cannot contribute any valuable ideas in one hour. Here are just a few strategic thoughts.

1. Attacking Peter and Churchill is more important because they are far from our war machines. If we find that more units can shorten the conquering time, this is more likely to happen on the closer AI, i.e. Japan. The units whipped from Sury or Qin can get there in 3~4 turns.
2. 2 galleys for Peter's war can convey 4 units/turn, and 20 units in 5 turns. I think this rate is already OK. Granary is not needed as it cannot pay itself off. We can count the units for Peter every turn and plan some drills at the barbrian city before 20 units are ready. We can send units to Peter immediately.
3. Once we got all defence info of Peter/Churchill, we can do some test to know how long it will take to conquer Peter and Chruchill with a finite number of units. This is important because once these units are sent to their land, mostly we don't want them back. We can add 10% buffer though. My guess is 20 units in 15 turns and 30 units in 10 turns.
4. As always emphasized, we may train more units earlier with greater deficit. If our deficit is D, our capability of building wealth is W, our balance is C, our remaining turns are T, the optimal equation is to keep (D-W)*T=C. If T=25, C=900+500~1300(GM or a second golden age)+1000(city conquered-more maintanence cost), W=200, we can keep deficit as many as 290. Earlier units lead to earlier victory and we can build wealth at anytime if there's temporary crisis.
5. If the city + UB cannot pay it off in T turns, we can destroy it. This will be more frequent from T151 to T171. Groceries and banks also depend on the return rate.
6. As proved in project management, it's always useful to set an aggressive goal. We can set a goal of victory at T176. The war vs Peter/Churchill may start from T161~T165. The war vs Japan may start from T165 with more knights to facilitate in T165~T170. More and more cities will start to build wealth from T169 since the units cannot arrive at the frontier in 7 turns. Again, get the units out earlier, don't worry about deficit too much.
7. PD's score is close to us but they have more units. It can be justified if they are using hereditary. From their curve, I think our galley city for Peter is settled earlier than them. If we can well make use of this advantage, we can have less waste because of waiting. Anyway, I think a victory before T180 is competitive.

8. T151~T165 is crucial as the progress of T165 afterwards is mostly determined by the preparation in this period. 7 turns a week might be enough in the next 2 weeks and the last week will be basically implementation which can be faster. Good luck Mabraham and the team.

 

[mabraham]

Thanks for the strategy thoughts, sossos! Very valuable. It is good to put some numbers on the table so we know unit production is still the way to go.

We should be thinking about whether units/buildings/improvements will pay off over the estimated 25 turns and forget the rest. If we are going to be mass-whipping, no need for more workshops. Workers for building roads under the armies make sense.

Spamming units at Peter now seems to make sense. The knights on the current southern flotilla can probably go west instead. Maybe some trebuchets too, once I count tiles and see what new units will build. Don't want a clog near Kumbi. Probably need another galley in that area, too.

Later in my set, when we have seen more of Peter's land and army, we can judge when to stop, or if we want a Kagoshima settler (and it can get a galley in time to be useful!). Qin forces mop up there and move west. The split for Churchill will happen after my turn set, but I will bear it in mind.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Here is the T151 Real Game Photo Dump:


Qin Front
Vienna has Longbow, Landsknecht, and a +1 vision chariot.
Qin Pike has a trebuchet under it.
Qin Knight has a shock Chu-ko-nu under it

Spoiler :

Homeland and Peter Front

Spoiler :

 

[Kaitzilla]

Churchill and Tokugawa

Spoiler :

Techs and Misc.

Spoiler :

I forgot Peter has that +25% city defense wonder. Mmm, he has same power as Qin now.

 

[mabraham]

Detailed PPP T151-161

AP vote is next turn, vote count after that. We plan to vote no to Qin's presumed "peace with Qin" resolution, and manipulate his vote count so he can't win it. We will grow Raja and both Angkors, which will be enough on their own unless Chengdu spreads, since no Qin city rates to grow. (See Kaitzilla's screenshot of the Resolutions screen.) Qin is in caste, so he won't whip or starve either.

• 
  * If Buddhism spreads to Chengdu, give up on military means. T152 cease fire, gift Trojan Horse to Qin, flip him to Hinduism. T152 break the cease fire and go back to business. Retake TH as soon as convenient, leave a spy there just in case we think of something Mansa gets we want to steal.
  * If Buddhism does not spread to Chengdu, try a revolt in Hangzhou. If that succeeds, capture and raze Hangzhou even though it will have pike-lb-sw defending. If the revolt fails, give up on military means and gift Trojan Horse as above

Other aspects of the Qin war
Take and raze Chengdu (unless maybe it has most of forge-courthouse-granary still) but wait for a bit of fortification on the spy.

Regroup northern forces and move on Shanghai. Use spies to take Shanghai (we have far more on Qin than we need; spies will not make it to Nanjing in time to be useful).

Guangzhou forces all head to 1SE of Beijing, siege, capture and keep. Take all siege, even if injured. Leave half a dozen mixed units to defend Guangzhou. Push on to Nanjing ASAP. Seige, capture and probably keep Nanjing (if only to stop Toku settling it).

Peter's war
We need to see Peter's land, and whether there is a passable galley route such that boats will be useful recycling units from Churchill to Peter fronts. If so, then we can send a moderate excess to attack Churchill, an expeditionary force to attack Peter, and know that we will not be wasting the excess, and might even take Kagoshima from the north late in the game.

Assemble the units around PeterBridge into LK-axe-phant-medicaxe scouting/pillaging mini-stack on the gold tile (sadly no 2-movement pillaging unit will be available for a while). DOW Peter soon, i.e. whenever convenient for the pillaging stack and they galleys' movement. Flood all new units to his front. Send all units in our homeland, plus (from the boats that were heading south): two knights, two phants and LK. The primary objective of the early DOW is getting the first galley from PeterBridge south to see if we have a naval route from Peter to Churchill. So chop the first galley from PeterBridge ASAP and plan for at least one more galley.

Great People We have a ~62% GMerchant next turn. We have 24 in the Marble Pigs granary and 3 more turns planned in caste before we switch back to slavery. I plan to work the three food tiles and 11 merchants to produce 357 at -8/turn. 18 of those are required to finish this GPerson, so 339 will carry forward. The next GPerson requires 500, so 161 more will be required. We can only run two merchants in slavery (from the market), so our base production will drop to 7. Multiplier will be 2.5, so we'll produce 17/turn, so another ~95% GMerchant will be due in good time to support the economy. (We can also add a grocer, and we'll have to re-open borders with Toku in time to use the trade mission!) Basically, use the Golden Age multiplier on caste while we have food to convert it with. Even if we can't re-open borders with Toku (from shared war with Mansa) in time to suit the war campaign, we can get a final Golden Age with the scientist. Accordingly, grow Aachen to size 11 for max return. Then whip it real good!

If the T152 GPerson is a GSpy or GArtist, unite with scientist T154 and run a second Golden Age (and still switch to the planned techs at the end of the first Golden Age). Do not infiltrate - we will have heaps of . If T152 GPerson is an engineer, probably do as above - even FP in Guangzhou or something is really not worth it. Might we want Sistine Chapel fail wealth instead?

If the T152 GPerson is the hoped-for GMerchant, move him to Walata, and do a trade mission once we have a road to Walata and Aachen at 11 pop.

Espionage
On Churchill until we get city visibility, then Toku for same. We have enough for city visibility on Peter already. Intel to judge army sizes is the most important use for espionage in the next 15 turns, now that we probably have enough from the infiltration to use on Qin.

Diplo
Keep OB with Toku. Keep OB with Mansa and/or Toku until the trade mission(s) succeed. Kill Qin. Pretty much ignore Peter and Churchill, but don't get get caught in peace treaties with them either.

Can we threaten/beg anyone?

Tech
Still on Gunpowder at 0%. Do not run any scientists. On T152, if planning to gift TH to Qin to manipulate the AP vote as above, trade Theol from Toku first, lest we lose that opportunity, somehow.

Civics
T154 Acquire Theology by any means necessary, switch to Police, Vassalage, Slavery, Mercantilism, Theocracy. FTW!

Cities
If we get the GMerchant T152, switch free specialist to engineer where available, then spy where available. Otherwise, judge as best I can.

Aachen
If GMerchant spawns, aim for 11 pop ASAP. But work hammer tiles in GAge. Finish LK, spam knights for Peter front.

Woodsville
Continue treb per turn. Probably don't start the death-whip this turn set.

GLH
Finish spy, then spam LK. Use workshops in GAge. Steal crabs after GAge and work crabs, banana, lake, river farm. Whip every time it gets to size 5.

Marble Pigs
Per GPerson plan, run max merchants. Give tiles to neighbours if they can use them. Later, whip treb every second turn

Phantown
Work hammer tiles until end of GAge, then prefer farms and whip knight every second turn.

Stony Beach
Build wealth only

Fur City
Take copper. Whip LK when reasonable.

Desert Hill
Take cottage tiles from Marble Pigs. Finish spy, start another.

Pyramid City
Start a selection of units, take food tiles from Aachen once it reaches size 11, mass whip.

Silver City
Whip units as possible

Djenne
Whip units as possible

Timbuktu
Give pigs and cottage to Kansas, work plains cottages in GAge (accelerates bank by a turn, which pays back any gold loss). Later, work max cottages, building a unit slowly, but whip if there's no good commerce tile to work.

Kumbi Saleh
Whip units as possible. Take theatre off queue. Send archer to be MP in Hades Hammer.

Hades Anvil
Work lake rather than coast (with lighthouse). Start galley. Whip whichever of galley or rathaus makes the most sense first, then the other. Then build spies and whip as possible.

Vienna
Finish Rathaus, wealth

Nuremburg
Start treb. Whip Rathaus ASAP. Then whip trebs as possible.

Raja
Ensure growth IBT T152-3 for AP vote. Start a selection of units to prepare for mass whip.

Kansas
Take pigs and cottage from Timbuktu. Whip Rathaus when possible, then units when possible.

Hades Hammer
Whip units as possible

Angkor Wat
Ensure growth IBT T152-3 for AP vote. Finish sword and start a selection of units for mass whipping.

Angkor Thorn
Ensure growth on each of next two turns. Whip rathaus. Later, keep population on villages, but otherwise whip units.

Yasodharapura
Whip rathaus. Work max cottages. Whip units if possible.

Nagara Jayasri
Whip rathaus, then work max cottages, probably build wealth (no granary).

Trojan Horse
Build wealth. Hope to enjoy its pigs later.

Xian
Whip rathaus, then units.

Peter Bridge City
Galley, galley, then maybe another galley. No granary. Consider settler for possible Kagoshima bridge, else units.

Guangzhou
Whip rathaus, then units

Workers

Do not build any new workshops.
Chop any forest.
Give TH its pigs.
Make sure by the end of every army stack has two workers available to build roads under it.
Build optimal road network NW from Woodsville.
Also SW roads from Pyramid and Phantown.
Road to Walata before trade mission.
Road SW of PeterBridge once the bananas are up

Next GG
Move to southern front, defer attach decision until later

Other
Axe near Kassite, scout and pillage.
LK-axe-phant-medicaxe assemble at PeterBridge to be post-DOW scout force. Sword defend HH until archer arrives from KS.
Current spies in mainland head south (except two in TH remain).
Belisarius definitely heads south - need two super medics there.
Assemble Hades galleys for initial chain (probably not sustainable)
Churchill scout to desert hill in NE corner in case there's extra things to see.
Swordsman 13 --> MP for Yasodharapura
frees Crossbowman 1 --> MP for Guangzhou.
allows: Axeman 8 --> MP for Nagara Jayasri?
allows: War Elephant 10 --> join SoD or 2nd MP for Guangzhou?

Future war plans
Qin forces travel through Toku land (make sure we keep OB with Toku!) and mostly marshall stack 3E1S of Hastings. Some might divert to open an internal front on Toku, but that will be a decision next turn set. Then DOW Churchill, close borders with Toku, and teleport onto Hastings pig tile (anchor city will be Nanjing). The Churchill troops are on a one-way ticket. They will never come back to tackle Toku. Their best-case scenario is that we can get some boats to Churchill's land from the north and maybe some of the leftover units from Churchill can make it to Peter's lands in order to make a difference. A galley city 4N of Kagoshima might be a wise investment once we have some more intel.

 

[mabraham]

I plan to start play 20 hours from this post.

I might pause if we get an adverse GPerson and there is not consensus about what to do with it.

I will stop if the AP-vote combo plan has failed.

Wednesday evening I am already booked. Thursday is a public holiday, so I can certainly play all day then.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Detailed PPP T151-161

AP vote is next turn, vote count after that. We plan to vote no to Qin's presumed "peace with Qin" resolution, and manipulate his vote count so he can't win it. We will grow Raja and both Angkors, which will be enough on their own unless Chengdu spreads, since no Qin city rates to grow. (See Kaitzilla's screenshot of the Resolutions screen.) Qin is in caste, so he won't whip or starve either.

• 
  * If Buddhism spreads to Chengdu, give up on military means. T152 cease fire, gift Trojan Horse to Qin, flip him to Hinduism. T152 break the cease fire and go back to business. Retake TH as soon as convenient, leave a spy there just in case we think of something Mansa gets we want to steal.
  * If Buddhism does not spread to Chengdu, try a revolt in Hangzhou. If that succeeds, capture and raze Hangzhou even though it will have pike-lb-sw defending. If the revolt fails, give up on military means and gift Trojan Horse as above

We can take Chengdu t152. The spy there will have -10% bonus in 1t and close to 95% success on a Support City Revolt mission. Next we can barrage with the two trebuchets and possibly the catapult too. There are only three defenders there now and little prospect of building or moving defenders in (especially after we move several knights 2-E of Bejing, which may cause Qin to move units to defend his capital rather than Chengdu). The barraged longbowman, pikeman and swordsman will be no match for our four knights and landsnecht plus vision chariot in Vienna, if needed to kill a last decimated defender. The landsnecht can make the final attack and all surviving knights can move into the city. This turns any natural spread of Buddhism into Chengdu to our advantage (as unlikely as that may be = holy city is Yasodharapura).

Other aspects of the Qin war
Take and raze Chengdu (unless maybe it has most of forge-courthouse-granary still) but wait for a bit of fortification on the spy.

Regroup northern forces and move on Shanghai. Use spies to take Shanghai (we have far more on Qin than we need; spies will not make it to Nanjing in time to be useful).

I disagree. There are two spies in Galleys right now that can reach Nanjing t155, ready to use t156 at ~80% odds and t157+ at ~95% odds. These spies could also reach Beijing, but that would be clearly too late and without Walls or Castle unnecessary, since four trebuchets can completely bombard the cultural defense 60 down to 0 in 1t.

It was probably a mistake to use a spy on the Iron Mine. That spy could have been waiting in Nanjing or more likely Beijing instead.

Guangzhou forces all head to 1SE of Beijing, siege, capture and keep. Take all siege, even if injured. Leave half a dozen mixed units to defend Guangzhou. Push on to Nanjing ASAP. Seige, capture and probably keep Nanjing (if only to stop Toku settling it).

I suggest threatening Beijing with about half the knights moving t151 to 2-E of Beijing to help reduce the threat of counter attack in the northern front.

As previously mentioned, four trebuchets can completely destroy the cultural defense of 60 in 1t; four damaged trebuchets could be utilized.

A few damaged units can remain in Guangzhou, but six is probably over kill, unless some are knights which can catch up with our main SoD later, when the perceived threat against Guangzhou subsides.

Thus, without waiting to heal, Beijing can be captured t154.

I would suggest that half the knights move past Beijing towards Nanjing. They could attack t155, but would be doing so without help from the spy that could arrive the same turn. The spy can perform an ~80% Support City Revolt mission t156 or at ~95% odds t157. Thus, Nanjing can be captured t155 (versus intact Walls/Castle), t156 (with good odds of support city revolt) or t157 (with excellent odds of support city revolt). The odds of the t156 can be improved by commiting two spies to the task waiting in galleys now.

Peter's war
We need to see Peter's land, and whether there is a passable galley route such that boats will be useful recycling units from Churchill to Peter fronts. If so, then we can send a moderate excess to attack Churchill, an expeditionary force to attack Peter, and know that we will not be wasting the excess, and might even take Kagoshima from the north late in the game.

Hades Hammar could build an Explorer t151-153, ready to move out t154. Possibly catch a ride on a new galley heading southwest.

Assemble the units around PeterBridge into LK-axe-phant-medicaxe scouting/pillaging mini-stack on the gold tile (sadly no 2-movement pillaging unit will be available for a while). DOW Peter soon, i.e. whenever convenient for the pillaging stack and they galleys' movement. Flood all new units to his front. Send all units in our homeland, plus (from the boats that were heading south): two knights, two phants and LK. The primary objective of the early DOW is getting the first galley from PeterBridge south to see if we have a naval route from Peter to Churchill. So chop the first galley from PeterBridge ASAP and plan for at least one more galley.

What do mean by "sadly no 2-movement pillaging unit will be available for a while"? Why can't we simply build a chariot or knight for this purpose? Sorry, misunderstood. "LK-axe-phant-medicaxe" is refering to existing units around PeterBridgeCity and Hades Hammar.

I don't see an early DoW as particularly useful, unless it captures cities aggressively. It is better to simply map Peter's land in peace, until our SoD arrives.

There may still be some Barbarian units roaming about. We can't leave PeterBridgeCity undefended or under-defended. An archer is not enough to defend against Barbarian swordsmen.

Great People We have a ~62% GMerchant next turn. We have 24 in the Marble Pigs granary and 3 more turns planned in caste before we switch back to slavery. I plan to work the three food tiles and 11 merchants to produce 357 at -8/turn. 18 of those are required to finish this GPerson, so 339 will carry forward. The next GPerson requires 500, so 161 more will be required. We can only run two merchants in slavery (from the market), so our base production will drop to 7. Multiplier will be 2.5, so we'll produce 17/turn, so another ~95% GMerchant will be due in good time to support the economy. (We can also add a grocer, and we'll have to re-open borders with Toku in time to use the trade mission!) Basically, use the Golden Age multiplier on caste while we have food to convert it with. Even if we can't re-open borders with Toku (from shared war with Mansa) in time to suit the war campaign, we can get a final Golden Age with the scientist. Accordingly, grow Aachen to size 11 for max return. Then whip it real good!

We only need to wait one more turn to return to slavery. In my opinion getting another chance at a Great Merchant to not worth staying in caste system; we need to start whipping units again in 1t. Just whip the Grocer and run 4 merchants forever. We can steal Philosophy and switch to Pacifism, if can afford the price which is doubtful.

You know we already have open borders with Tokugawa which can be cancelled in 2t. We re-opened borders with Tokugawa immediately after the teleport in t143. This must be the close borders for the Churchill SoD teleport. Since Tokugawa is at war with Mansa Musa we can DoW Mansa Musa and get assured open borders with Tokugawa. We may want to perform the trade mission before we teleport our SoD to Churchill's land.

If the T152 GPerson is a GSpy or GArtist, unite with scientist T154 and run a second Golden Age (and still switch to the planned techs at the end of the first Golden Age). Do not infiltrate - we will have heaps of . If T152 GPerson is an engineer, probably do as above - even FP in Guangzhou or something is really not worth it. Might we want Sistine Chapel fail wealth instead?

If the T152 GPerson is the hoped-for GMerchant, move him to Walata, and do a trade mission once we have a road to Walata and Aachen at 11 pop.

Wouldn't a trade mission to Tokugawa net us greater Wealth than via Mansa Musa due to the distance from capital factor?

We certainly could build fail wealth via The Sistine Chapel or The Colossus. They both have nearly double (180% to be exact in a city with a Forge; 166% with Forge+OR) the pay back then just building Wealth.

Forbidden Palace may help more than we think; it will last longer than a couple golden ages.

Espionage
On Churchill until we get city visibility, then Toku for same. We have enough for city visibility on Peter already. Intel to judge army sizes is the most important use for espionage in the next 15 turns, now that we probably have enough from the infiltration to use on Qin.

More likely we won't have enough spies to spend the 2411E we still have on Qin Shi Huang. We might want to cease fire with Qin just to give him Trojan Horse and steal some technologies from him. This could be done when all our forces are outside his borders or nearly so. Maybe after capturing Chengdu.

Diplo
Keep OB with Toku. Keep OB with Mansa and/or Toku until the trade mission(s) succeed. Kill Qin. Pretty much ignore Peter and Churchill, but don't get get caught in peace treaties with them either.

Can we threaten/beg anyone?

Tech
Still on Gunpowder at 0%. Do not run any scientists. On T152, if planning to gift TH to Qin to manipulate the AP vote as above, trade Theol from Toku first, lest we lose that opportunity, somehow.

Civics
T154 Acquire Theology by any means necessary, switch to Police, Vassalage, Slavery, Mercantilism, Theocracy. FTW!

Stealing Theology seems best whether from Qin or Mansa; it doesn't matter, except we need a cease fire with Qin to give him back Trojan Horse.

On the other hand, trading Music+Drama to Tokugawa for Theology seems reasonably safe.

...

Next GG
Move to southern front, defer attach decision until later

I still like settling the Great General in Woodsville which would then produce 9 XP trebuchets (and with a stable, 11 XP knights). I really like the 9 XP trebuchets which can barrage after 5-7 XP trebuchets which increases 9 XP trebuchets survival and quick promotion to CR3.

Galley travel from Kumbi Saleh through to Hades Hammar:

We can build Galleys in Hades Hammar, Hades Anvil, Kumbi Saleh and Kansas. Probably not all these cities need to build Galleys, but we definitely need a lot more than two galleys to bridge that much water. A fort/port 1-W of Kumbi Saleh would be nice, as that would eventually allow a chain from the Kumbi Saleh port/fort through Hades Anvil to Hades Hammar.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Kaitzilla]

Haha, my first ever double post. I must be slipping.