SGOTM 23 - Xteam

[Dhoomstriker]

Axeman 12 near Jerusalem... what's he up to? I can see how the Chariots can get back to the coast to get on Galleys, but I don't see a way to get him on a boat anytime soon. Troops need to be constantly active in wars if we're going to finish within a reasonable in-game date and when Units aren't involve in a war, then we should stop and think how to get them involved in a war.

If we were to get even just a couple of more Catapults by Rostov, we could go to war with Moscow, Pillage his Horse, and then march on Novgorod to start Bombarding it. It's unfortunate that we didn't get Open Borders or we could have Pillaged his Iron Resources at the start of the war, too. Let's not wait until we have a stack of 8 Musketmen before we Bombard Novgorod, as then we'll just delay our advance to the east.

It will take a good amount of turns to get Kublai to become a Vassal--it won't be an instantaneous process, so the sooner that we can get it happening, the sooner that we can end the game in in-game turns, and the longer that we wait, the later that we'll win the game in in-game terms.


Yes, it looks like I made a mistake in settling Transylvania instead of resettling Yakutsk, as we denied St. Pete's a chance to have some extra Chops. I was thinking that we needed a path for our Galleys, which will be nice, but not as nice as getting The Taj Mahal will be. If we can pause between Chopping (not Chopping next turn), we can start setting up some whipping overflow operations.

One way to recover will be to temporarily gift Moscow and Transylvania to someone and then Chop their Forests into St. Pete's.

Khan should be willing to accept Orenburg, so we could actually aim to start our war with Stalin by Pillaging Stalin's Horse, Pillaging Stalin's Iron Resources whenever we can (say, with a Musketeer from Rostov), and then only worrying about Bombarding Novgorod afterward.

Meanwhile, we would just need to capture Orenburg, as it is close enough to Ning-hsia to be giftable (it's 9.0 squares away and a City can be at most 9.5 squares away, where diagonals count as 1.5).

We'd then change the plan to gifting Orenburg, Yar, Moscow, and Transylvania, giving our Workers who will pre-Chop at Moscow and Transylvania a chance to finish Chopping into The Taj Mahal at St. Pete's, before we declare war on Kublai and recapture those Cities from him, and then begin the waiting process for him to be willing to talk with us and likely become our Vassal.

Good planning of our Worker actions in the area will be needed. We'll also want HA 10 (currently at 2 S of Munich) coming back to help with the capture of Orenburg.


As much as I'd like to have War Elephant 1 sail toward Alexandria/Heliopolis, I think that we'll need it plus a wounded Axeman to defend Alexandria (AIs are less scared of a single City Defender and might just throw everything that they have at a single City Defender and still win at a high cost, but at a greater cost to us).

We could consider going from 45 EPs to 260 EPs (+215 EPs) against Hatty just to get visibility of her Cities again.

Since we're not sure that Joao will learn Machinery next turn, we could still aim to learn Gunpowder this turn but dump some EPs onto Hatty and onto Stalin, too. We only need about another 40 EPs on Stalin, so Espionage Weighting could be used to get us roughly the right amounts being spent.


Spearman 1 would be wise to stay inside of Ivory Coast so that we can guard the City's ability to Draft Muskteers.


After Athens finishes its Market, it can switch to working the Sheep square that we got from out of Hatty's Culture--as soon as we won't delay the completion of the Market, we can switch a PH Mine to that Sheep.


I can't say that it worked out to march our troops from Istanbul across of the map. Overall, it looks like a couple of Axemen will be delayed in getting to Egypt as a result. I'm not sure what to say other than to consider that 3-movement-Galleys are meant to expedite our troops' movements all around the Mediterranean and then back to the Black Sea once we're done with Hatty and Joao, so let's keep our future logistical movements with this fact in mind.

If we're not sure what to do with troops, please consult with the team. Putting all of our heads together on the subject is likely to result in a strong plan. That's precisely the reason why I tend to appear to babble before throwing together a plan: to put some ideas out there and to get feedback on those ideas that either are crazy or that could use improving upon.


It might be best for us to sail to Heliopolis before Alexandria, because we have Horse Archers who will be more able to strike at Alexandria if they get some support from troops that land from the sea. I'm not totally certain without visibility of what's in those Cities.


That Barb Galley in the north is going to be annoying, since it can sail across of Coast squares diagonally like it couldn't on a normal map. With any luck, it will beeline our Work Boat and get lured right into our Trireme.


We should launch our Golden Age next turn, after completing MoM, but whether we switch Civics or Religion will depend upon whether Joao has completed research on Machinery.

Civics Change: Hatshepsut(Egypt) from 'Caste System' to 'Slavery'

That fact was unfortunate, but I suppose to be expected. We couldn't have bribed her into a different Civic, and we didn't have enough EPs to switch her Civics.

To avoid the same thing happening with Joao, i.e. to avoid Joao quickly switching into Slavery after we declare war on him, we can plan to bribe him into Organized Religion when we get Machinery and Feudalism from him, so that he'll have a delay in exactly when he'll be able to switch into Slavery, assuming that we can get into a war with him soon.



EDIT: If we had somewhere to Chop and Whip Settlers, we could have theoretically sent Settlers ahead through Kublai's lands (particularly if we'd snagged Open Borders with Stalin during our brief Mehmed) war and could have Liberated a few Cities to Mao, thereby only really needing to fight Stalin, Vassal Kublai, and get a Defensive Pact with Mao, assuming that we'd only need to settle a City somewhere in "The Far East" region.

But, Drafting and marking Musketeers to Mao is still probably going to be easier.


Note that if we don't need to build Missionaries, we could slip into Free Religion instead of switching into a State Religion of Islam, thereby allowing most AIs to still like us more than they do now, with the exceptions of Frederick and Joao liking us less.

I'm not sure what to say about Edirne--delay our Civic-switching by 1 turn just to whip out an Islamic Missionary for Darius? Doing so probably makes sense, as we also need 1 more turn of Chopping at Rostov. Or, just get Islam spread later?

 

[Jersey Joe]

If Pete could play that would keep the game moving. I need to take a break for about 4-5 hours.
Aberdeen: I think we should go how it is set up for growth in 2 turns (5 turns to finish the Parthenon). That dies not take into account the upcoming Golden age or that we can work a mine when we grow.

St. Pete will need to whip a few things for over flow to complete the Taj Mahal. Maybe St. Pete 2-pop whips a settler.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Based on a quick calculation, Rostov should be able to chop out the Forbidden Place if we chop 2 forests in neutral territory.

Do we still need those Chops in neutral territory? I think that you said that we only needed the 2 Forest Chops in the big fat cross, but it will help to know for sure.

I'm thinking of being out of Christian Organized Religion after 2 turns' time, probably in Free Religion for 5 turns.

Also, we might need to build a city 3 S of Rostov to have secure borders to Istanbul.

Istanbul could also just get 100 Culture. I suppose that our London-built Christian Missionary can be sent to Istanbul.

On that note, we'll probably need to raze Cities that we capture from Mao, maybe bring along Christian Missionaries or be in Caste System to hire Artist Specialists, and resettle 2 Cities if we just need a City in that round peninsula to the east of the "Bridge to Far East" sign or three Cities if we need to settle exactly on the "The Far East" sign, so that we'll get those squares within our Cultural Borders, probably also with us razing Beijing.

Once the forests are gone from around St. Pete it will not have a source of Hammers. GPP farm?

I don't know if we'll have enough Hammers for The National Epic, but if we plan our Worker movements out very carefully for the next few turns, can get enough Units in the area to capture Orenburg, and then gift 4 Cities to Kublai, we can Chop a bunch of the Forests in the area, declare war on Kublai, recapture those Cities, and all the while fend off Stalin. We should hopefully be able to Chop out The Taj Mahal in that way and possibly The National Epic with some good planning.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'm also uncertain about our Civics. Staying in Organized Religion with our current State Religion for the short term may be best, while we try to get whipping overflow into Aberdeen and St. Pete's, not to mention stolen Chops into St. Pete's.

Getting Saladin to declare war on Gandhi may not help us out that much just yet, as we don't have a bunch of AIs with Islam in their Cities to help join in on the war for Mutual Military Struggle bonuses.

If we capture all 3 of Hatty's north coast Cities, with her not having hooked up the Fish to the east of Ivory Coast down that Desert pathway, the Gandhi's Ivory trade for Hatty's Fish will get cancelled.

Staying in Christianity and Organized Religion makes the timing of items a bit more smooth--Edirne can just slow-build an Islamic Missionary instead of whipping one, and it will be easier for St. Pete's and Aberdeen to whip and overflow Hammers into their respective Wonders.

Doing so also lets us switch Civics as soon as Joao learns Machinery--if that's next turn, then we can begin Drafting as soon as next turn, meaning being able to march Musketeers toward Joao that much sooner.

Note that Drafted Units appear immediately on the map (one turn sooner than whipped Units appear), so, for example, Galley 2 can move 1 SW > 1 W (to 1 SW of London) on T129 and then can pick up the Drafted Musketeer on T130 (assuming that Joao learns Machinery in between turns) which can then board Galley 2 and unload inside of Jackpot on T130, after Chariot 20 from Paris captures Jackpot.


As a note, we won't be razing Oporto and will just keep the City. With Joao bribed into Organized Religion, he'll be unlikely to get into Slavery in time to be able to whip the City.


A Settler being whipped out of St. Pete's is a decent idea.


What are we going to do with our Great General? If two of them settled in St. Pete's, we'd later have 3-movement-point Galleys out of the gates, or could get them by slipping into Theocracy, but a steady stream of 2-movement-Galleys is just as good.

So, I suppose that he would be best used to join with Musketeers or other Units at Stalin. Would a 3-movement-point Musketeer be hilarious to create, say, for Pillaging Stalin's Iron Mines quickly?


Are we safe to assume that the Barb Galley near Argent is empty? There are 3 Barb Cities in the north from the east side, but the Barb Galley appears to have come from the west side, so it should be empty, right?


We can't really make a Galley chain to the east with Churchill owning Katty and us both not having Open Borders with him and not being at war with him. However, we cannot kill off Churchill, as he must be alive for his Culture to help with giving us an Espionage Cultural Victory for our London Culture, and he's a good AI to whom to gift a City such as Lisbon later for an additional Espionage Cultural Victory Legendary City.

I'm not sure what the best answer is there... maybe at some point we capture the Barb City of Ainu in the north and relocate Churchill there?

Orenburg could be useful for us to hang onto in the short term after we recapture it from Kublai if only to give our Galleys who return from the Mediterranean somewhere to unload our troops, although Orenburg might otherwise be a good spot to relocate Churchill.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Sorry, but I had RL commitments tonight and will have tomorrow, so I cant play for at least 22 hours and not sure about that.

Can't believe how few units went into capturing Thebes. Well done, Joe.

Comments on save:

Chariot19 can kill war chariot and get a promotion, leaving two healthy chariots for only 1 galley to pick up from barbland.

Put one galley inside Thebes to give us the option of loading unit next turn for pillaging horses.

Suggest building a mine on St. Pete's lone grass hill to speed Taj. We have a 12-turn GA, and that mined hill with a forge will be worth 5 hammers each turn. (Not clear that several discussed build calculations have taken GA extra hammers into consideration.)

Strongly agree to put points on Hats and Stalin to reveal units in cities.

We could put a citizen on the gold in Gold Coast and be able to whip a spear there next turn. Spear could then protect our HA's from WEs as they advance on Helios.

We can load a cat onto a galley, pick up Athen's axe, and sail toward Alexandria, revealing the city. Probably want to move at least one empty galley toward Alexandria to facilitate chaining.

What about using GGeneral to promote some of our drafted musketeers -- cover and especially multiple woodsmen seem desirable given all the forest to the east.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I cant play for at least 22 hours and not sure about that.

Okay, I'll put in a session soon.

I've received Private Messaged confirmation from BSPollux that we just need to own a City somewhere in that round peninsula to the east of the "Bridge to Far East" sign. Of course, we need to own the Cultural Borders to that City or else have a Defensive Pact with Mao, and Mao only gives a Defensive Pact at Friendly. Liberating some Cities to him could be an option, but getting Engineering and marching Units and then Settlers to resettle the Cities that we raze, by marching through Kublai's lands once Kublai is our Vassal, will probably be simpler to pull off.

Chariot19 can kill war chariot and get a promotion, leaving two healthy chariots for only 1 galley to pick up from barbland.

Sounds good. If the Chariot that attacks isn't too wounded, we could pick up all 3 Chariots. If you'd rather just send 1 Galley, then we should probably attack with our least-promoted Chariot, which may be the Chariot that you already mentioned.

Put one galley inside Thebes to give us the option of loading unit next turn for pillaging horses.

If we're going to do that, we should load a Unit onto the Galley this turn, but I'm not sure which Unit we'd use--an Axeman would be instantly killed by a War Chariot, and our War Elephant is better off either defending Thebes or even just marching along the Road past Thebes towards Hatty's City to the south-west of there, essentially blocking the Road on which any counter-attack could be made.

The real question is... do we march to the south-west, to be joined by a Musketeer Drafted from Ivory Coast, or do we send Units along the coast to grab Alexandria or Heliopolis?

If we march south-west, we can just capture the City without needing to bother Pillaging the Horse Resource.

If we capture the coastal Cities, we'll cut off the supply of Ivory.

Suggest building a mine on St. Pete's lone grass hill to speed Taj. We have a 12-turn GA, and that mined hill with a forge will be worth 5 hammers each turn. (Not clear that several discussed build calculations have taken GA extra hammers into consideration.)

I don't know if we'll have time to build a Mine with all of the Forests to Chop within a short period of time. If possible, we'll get all of the nearby Forests Chopped while we're still in Organized Religion after temporarily gifting away the Cities whose big fat crosses steal those Forests (Moscow and Transylvania).

Note that if St. Pete's whips a Settler, we'll lose about 4 population points--2 population points from not growing for 2 turns while building the Settler, plus 4 population points from the act of whipping itself. I'm not sure when it will be best to hire Specialists, but I'm currently thinking that the first 5 turns of Golden Age will be in Organized Religion (6 turns of Joao takes 2 turns to learn Machinery) and then after that, we'll be in Pacifism, so I'm actually doubting that it will be wise to whip a Settler in St. Pete's, but we probably should whip a Building that offers Specialist slots, especially if we can get good overflow Hammers from it.

I'll try to figure out which Forests will need Workers and if we have an extra Worker, we can put him on building a Mine.

Strongly agree to put points on Hats and Stalin to reveal units in cities.

Hatty for certain, and Stalin soon, but I wonder if Frederick might be a good choice for the very-short term, too.

With the loss of Istanbul to Hatty's Unit, did we manage to keep tabs on any of Hatty's other Units? She had at least 1 Archer that had headed toward Macau through Frederick's lands but had backtracked. I don't see any evidence of it on the map, nor do I see evidence of us killing it. There may be other such Units to watch out for. What mitigation have we in place for such a situation? We can see about dumping enough EPs on Frederick to see what he has in his Cities, to see if Hatty has an Archer or additional Units around his lands. Either that or else we plan to get Units to defend our Cities--Rostov and Hamburg have a Unit in each of them, but Cologne does not.

EDIT: I see Hatty's Archer right by Cologne, within range of HA 10, so HA 10 can take it out. Does Hatty have any other Units in the area or can we safely assume that her only other Unit was used to snatch Istanbul out from under us?

We could put a citizen on the gold in Gold Coast and be able to whip a spear there next turn. Spear could then protect our HA's from WEs as they advance on Helios.

We're not going to get another Horse Archer soon, nor will we be able to Draft in Gold Coast soon, so this idea sounds good to me. Our Horse Archers might be better off going for Alexandria, in coordination with troops dropped off by Galley, as 3 Horse Archers generally aren't enough to capture a City on their own.

We can load a cat onto a galley, pick up Athen's axe, and sail toward Alexandria, revealing the city. Probably want to move at least one empty galley toward Alexandria to facilitate chaining.

Note that an Axeman won't defend a Catapult from a War Chariot, so we'd either need to get a Horse Archer going by Galley, too, or else we'd need to meet up with at least one of our Horse Archers already in Egypt.

What about using GGeneral to promote some of our drafted musketeers -- cover and especially multiple woodsmen seem desirable given all the forest to the east.

It's better than settling in Athens, since we'd need either 2 Great Generals or us to run Theocracy for boats built from there to get +1 movement point, and getting Combat I on a bunch of Galleys doesn't make a lot of sense.

+1 movement point could go on the Musketeer who gets joined to the Great General, though, for faster Pillaging of Stalin's Mines, with the other Promotions possibly being Combat Promotions--we've had a couple of times where we've given +1 movement to a Woodsman II Unit only to find that that Unit CANNOT move 4 squares through Forests. So, I doubt that Woodsman II would give us the results that would "make sense" to have happen on a Musketeer--it would probably just end up being a defensive Promotion without offering additional movement points, unfortunately. But, someone could test out the idea.



What happened to Hatty's Galley? Did we sink it when we captured Thebes? Do we have to watch out for her having boats anywhere?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

PPP
As a reminder, if we don't list an item to be whipped, then we should think very carefully before whipping it.

For example, Ivory Coast could turn 2 population points from Drafting into 160 Hammers. Or, it could turn 2 population points from whipping into 60 Hammers. Which is better? Clearly, the Drafting, although we'll likely suffer from severe Unhappiness for a few turns until that City gets connected back to our Trade Network.


T129 build item changes
Gold Coast builds a Spearman to be whipped next turn
Yar--a Buddhist Missionary might be nice, but so might be a Unit to deal with Stalin. I'm a bit on the fence here, but maybe we can whip one of both, with the best Unit to use against Stalin being an Axeman to defend Cities
Edirne builds an Islamic Missionary
Spy 10 and Spy 14 move toward the coast to be picked up by Galley 2
Galley 2 moves 1 SW > 1 W, where it can pick up a Unit Drafted from London and can head toward Jackpot, where it will pick up Spy 10 and Spy 14, to be shipped to London
Send our Great General onto a Galley
HA 10 kills Egypt's Archer, then heads to Stalin
The Woody II Axe to the north of Athens will do an about-face and march back to Stalin's area
Chariots near Barb City try to kill Hatty's War Chariot and get ready to be picked up by Galley
We need to decide between marching to the south-west or going for Hatty's coastal City. I think that going for Alexandria will be the preferred choice, as we can also get our Horse Archers to head there

Put some EPs on Hatty and if we have enough, also on Stalin, to try to see what's in their Cities, while still learning Gunpowder

T130
Moscow might whip its Jewish Missionary--it depends upon whether we'll stay in Org Rel or not
Edirne might whip its Islamic Missionary--it depends upon whether we'll stay in Org Rel or not
Chariot 20 in Paris captures Jackpot from Hatty... or, maybe we shouldn't? Maybe we should keep trying to steal whatever techs Hatty researches, if she doesn't duplicate tech research on one of our techs (i.e. if she goes for Education, let's just capture Jackpot, but if she goes for Compass, we could try to steal it from her by not capturing Jackpot just yet)
Chain our Galley to the St. Pete's area
The Axeman near Jerusalem that is in the middle of nowhereland is going to try to either get to the coast to be picked up by a Galley or get to Stalin's area

Drafting Locations
Whether we can Draft on T130 will depend upon how quickly Joao techs Machinery
T130? Lyons
T130? XO Cognac
T130? Somewhere else?
T131 Ivory Coast

I'm not sure if we should Draft in St. Pete's... I'm probably going to advise against it, as the City isn't going to have a lot of Happiness... then again, if we aim to whip a Market there, maybe it will make sense to Draft there, so it can be an option

Paris Workers build a diagonal Road at:
1 SW + 1 S of Paris (1 NW of Macau), 2 W of Macau (1 SE + 1 S of XO Cognac), and 3 S of XO Cognac
Workers try not to waste Worker actions, so they'll try to find a way to get around efficiently. For example, one Worker who Chopped the Deer can move 2 E to the GH Wine to Road that square, but 2 Workers won't do so

Joao + Civics
T130? T131? Trade:
Feudalism + Machinery + Switch Civics to Organized Religion <-> Education (+ Literature if he needs it)
T130? T131? ONLY AFTER trading with Joao, we switch Civics to: Representation and Nationhood, then begin Drafting


Workers around St. Pete's: Get onto all of the nearby Forests that can be Chopped into St. Pete's, using Galleys, where necessary

We should be able to get the Forest at 2 W of Moscow, but not 1 W of Moscow, since St. Pete's Cultural Borders won't cover there
There's also a Forest close to Katty that will be within St. Pete's Cultural Borders
I'm not sure about 1 W of Transylvania--since Khan is Creative, even if we let him keep the City, he'd probably put too much Culture into the square for us to get it
2 W of Transylvania should work, even though it means Chopping the Deer
3 W of Transylvania should also work, even though it will be outside of our Cultural Borders


I think that we can send Edirne's Spearman to Istanbul and have Istanbul's Axeman head toward Stalin

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'll be playing shortly...

Turnset Report

T129, 350AD
The first thing that we do is move War Elephant 1 into Thebes to defend the City

Hatty had Swordsmen, huh? Great job in taking them out! Well, I don't see her having access to Iron or Copper anymore, so she probably traded for one of those Resources at some point

We are going to need all of the Commerce not needed for Gunpowder just to be able to get visibility of Hatty's Cities, so visibility of Stalin's Cities will have to wait for another day

I switch Paris' GH Mine to a G Riv Cottage to grow 1 turn sooner; growth before Hammers as long as we have Happiness, both for working more Cottages in Paris and in general, since more population points gives us access to Drafting, converting Food into Hammers at a very efficient rate

I also put Paris' Missionary as the 2nd build item in the build queue, to delay the time when we'll need to complete it

Athens still needs to work a PH Mine in order to complete its Market in 2 turns

Gold Coast switches to building a Spearman while working the Gold Mine

St. Pete's switches the Chopped G to a Coast square

Yar switches to building an Axeman

Edirne switches to building an Islamic Missionary

HA 10 kills Hatty's Archer near Hamburg and gets hurt in the process to 4.4/6 Health

As requested, Chariot 19 makes the kill on Hatty's War Chariot, but this fight was won with full health, so we'll bring 2 Galleys to pick up our 3 Chariots

Spies 10 and 14 wander their way through the open grassland to a Road, where they spot some talking Horses that tell them how to catch a ferry ride in Jackpot--either the City will be ours and they can catch a ferry in the town, or the City will remain Hatty's (if we can steal a tech from her that she starts to research), in which case they can march through town to Galley 2 once Galley 2 has unloaded the Missionary and possible Musketeer that will board it first

Spearman 1 can Skip his Turn in Ivory Coast, so that we'll be attentive to any War Chariot that comes close to the City that we might want to pick off--but that we might miss seeing if we were to Fortify our Unit

Orleans aims to grow in 2 turns' time

(London will probably need a Military Police Unit if we Draft it twice. The same is true for Lyons.)

Spies 003 and 009 move 2 NW out of Paris, to either be able to slip into Jackpot or more likely catch a boat to London

We send Rostov's War Elephant and Moscow's Catapult in the direction of Orenburg

Argent's Great General gets on a Galley

I don't see a suitable Unit for Pillaging Hatty's Horse, and I think that we'll be better off just sending our troops to capture her Cities as soon as possible--our Units reveal that Alexandria is guarded by 1 Archer and 1 Warrior, with 1 Catapult in the field at 1 SW of the City, so with the quick capture of Hatty's Cities, we won't have to worry about her building too many new Units

Axe 11 (north of Athens) would take 4 turns to get on a boat, but can arrive in Yar in 6 turns; we'll need spare Units for recapturing Cities from Kublai, so we send him toward Russia--by the time that he could get on a boat, we'd rather be putting Drafted Musketmen on our limited number of boat spaces

On that note, I have Lyons start to build an Archer, as Cities which Draft should have a Military Police Unit in them for +2 Happiness (we get 2 Unhappiness at Size 6 without a Military Police Unit)

We don't have a ton of excess Healthiness, but we still have +4 in Paris and XO Cognac after trading Corn to Mao for 5 Gold per Turn, which is a sum worthy of such a trade


T130, 375 AD
AP Election results:
Hatty votes for Hatty 42 votes
Saladin votes for Saladin 64 votes
Kublai votes for Saladin 8 votes
We abstain with our 23 votes

India has an Archer roaming around Stalin's lands, which we should be wary of if we get into a war with Gandhi

Pasargadae completes The Parthenon (Darius), so at least we'll get a chunk of Failure Gold, but not an ideal amount of GPP. So be it

Joao wants:
Machinery + Feudalism + Adopt Organized Religion <-> Education + 110 Gold

So, we give him Literature instead of the Gold, earning 40 Gold (a net difference of 150 Gold) from him instead

Now I feel dumb for having started an Archer, as it will get converted into a more expensive type of Unit as long as we have Iron (meaning a selection between a Longbowman or a Crossbowman, with us only being able to build Archers if we lost all Iron access), with Chariots being our cheapest buildable Military Police Units to build until we learn Guilds, at which point Longbowmen will become our cheapest buildable Military Police Units

The Barb Galley has come chasing after our Work Boat

Hatty has:
1 Archer, 1 Warrior, 1 Catapult, and 1 Trireme in Alexandria (the Trireme must have just been built)
War Chariot at 4 W of Memphis
2 Archers in Memphis
2 Archers in Heliopolis
1 Archer and 1 Warrior in Elephantine (but she can keep that City so that she'll have a City with Islam in it, and that City has 0 Food Resources, so it is junk, with its only problem being that it denies us one Gold Resource)

It's time to switch Civics into Representation + Nationalism; any last-minute objections?

Athens switches a PH Mine to a Sheep and still will get its Market in 1 turn

Gold Coast can wait to whip its Spearman, as there are no Units of Hatty's within striking distance of the City

St. Pete's starts to build a Market--we can 4-pop-whip it for Specialist slots and +3 Happiness--well, +2 until we get our Ivory reconnected

We will complete The Forbidden Palace in Rostov at the end of this turn, yay!

Aberdeen can start on a Courthouse, to help with all of the Maintenance Costs up there in England, now that The Parthenon is gone

At some point soon, we can whip our Jewish Missionary out of Moscow and then slow-build another Unit (a Chariot? an Axeman?) to completion, if we'll have enough Hammers--I do want to get Orenburg soon so that we'll be able to get to work on making Kublai our Vassal soon

Ugh, the Axeman build item in Yar will also get upgraded to a Maceman--I really wasn't thinking about being able to get techs in trade so soon and thought that Joao would probably take 2 turns on Machinery--oh well, with help from a Chop, we will be able to 1-pop-whip a Maceman out of Yar

Hatty has started to research Drama, so she can keep the City of Jackpot for a little while longer

With MoM in hand, before I forget, we start our Golden Age... I'd rather have MoM and miss out on The Parthenon, than the opposite

We switch research to Engineering at a 100% Science Rate--we'll learn it in 2 turns' time, which will mean a whole different way of thinking about Unit logistics


Representation will initially be worth about 15 base Flasks per turn--Police State would be an alternative, but I don't think that we'll be whipping enough Units at this late stage, so we stick with the plan and switch into Representation + Nationhood... it would actually be a decent time to collect EPs, since we get a boost to EPs during Nationhood, but I think that research has to continue to take priority, at least until near the end of the game, when we'll need EPs for our Cultural Victory

Lyons Drafts... I really don't want to have to deal with Hatty's Trireme using our speedy Galleys, so what we can do is: start to build a Trireme in Orleans, Draft again next turn, and after Drafting, 2-pop-whip the Trireme

Paris can just slow-build its Monasteries while it focuses on growing

After we learn Engineering, I recommend that we tech Printing Press to help Paris get more raw Commerce (Villages and Towns get +1 Commerce with Printing Press)--we only have 1 Village at Paris so far, but more will appear over time

York starts on a Military Police Unit Chariot for London so that London will be able to get away with a few Drafts

Rather than Mining at Orleans, I'd prefer to build G Riv Farms, particularly since those squares are shared with Cologne

London has Drafted

HA 10 will Galley-chain to St. Pete's alongside of our Great General

2 Workers head toward the Forests toward the north of St. Pete's via Galley: the GH Deer For at 1 NW + 2 N and the GH For at 2 NW + 1 N

Rostov could do with a G Riv Farm, to irrigate its Wheat, which I think is more important than a Mine for St. Pete's, as St. Pete's can get Hammers from 4 "stolen" Chops

Our Axeman near Jerusalem takes a potshot at a Barbarian Archer, since he's not going to be of much use elsewhere, but the Barb Archer survives with 0.1 health, so one of our Chariots finishes off the Barb Archer

XO Cognac also Drafts

I don't like the idea of risking our Galleys against Hatty's Trireme, so I dump off 4 Units by Alexandria on the wrong side of the river, thinking that our Horse Archers on the left side of the river (the correct side) will be used as the primary attackers for the City anyway

Note that from now on, in general, Windmills will be better than Mines on virgin Hills

If we had more turns to plan, we'd probably come up with better uses for our Galleys; for now, I try to set up a chance to chain some Musketeers toward Thebes while leaving options for dodging a Trireme that may come at us

Gandhi has Sugar that he won't trade to us

London works a new Farm--I'm not sure that it will make sense to Draft there again, as we'll want to hire Specialists there when we're in Pacifism

T131, 400 AD
Hatty's Workers start Cottaging over a Flood Plains Farm, so they are bored and/or trapped

We complete The Forbidden Palace in Rostov; since we cannot resume building the War Elephant, we start on a Catapult there, and we should be able to Draft next turn

For 120 EPs, we could steal Drama from Hatty

We Bombard Alexandria, kill an Archer with our Horse Archer, and kill a Warrior across of a River with our Axeman, capturing the City

Unfortunately, Hatty's Trireme went northward, so our Galleys are just going to have to dodge it until our own Trireme can engage hers

I'll have Units that remained at 1 N of Thebes to heal start marching on Memphis, to be joined by the Musketeer that we just Drafted in Ivory Coast

RE: Liberalism
Joao was already researching Engineering (he'd picked it and he took Machinery as a consequence), so I felt no need to wait a turn to trade techs with him so that he'd have zero chance of selecting Liberalism as his next tech, as he had already selected his next tech

Gold Coast whips its Spearman in case Hatty's War Chariot, which has gone to reinforce her junk City of Elephantine, decides to come at Gold Coast next turn

Hatty has built ANOTHER Trireme, this time in Heliopolis

As promised, Lyons Drafts and then 2-pop-whips a Trireme

Joao will not Open Borders with Hatty, so it actually seems wise to Open Borders with Joao now, to hide our Galleys in Joao's waters

Hamburg Drafts and then starts work on a Settler, to that we'll force ourselves to actually build a Resort before the end of the game

St. Pete's whips its Market for overflow Hammers

Aberdeen's Fish is re-netted and our Trireme guards it, while our Galley moves to 1 square away from guarding the other Fish; we'll see what the Barb Galley does, but I suspect that it will try to attack our slightly-wounded Trireme; with any luck, we'll win that fight

Overall, I would suggest that we do not pay to upgrade our Units and we simply do our best to get other Units to the right locations in time to avoid needing to pay to Upgrade Units... we're bleeding Gold pretty hard, even while in a Golden Age

We're going to need to figure out the timing of gifting Cities to Kublai... sooner rather than later, but first we'll need to capture Orenburg while not losing Moscow or other Cities in the process; perhaps, against my better judgement, we should Draft in St. Pete's next turn

We see enough of Hatty's Cities, so we attempt to steal Drama from her, getting it on the first attempt

Her south-east City of Pi-Ramesses has a War Chariot in it

Joao gladly Opens Borders with us, asking us what took us so long to do so

2 Chariots unload in Thebes; the other one will head toward Russia, as we'll need Units to capture Orenburg and then we'll need 4 Units to recapture Cities that we gift to Kublai

Watch out for Spy Specialists automatically getting hired in a lot of our Cities whenever they grow in City Size

We can leave Jackpot in the hands of Hatty for another turn to see what she chooses to tech next; fortunately, we still have enough EPs on her to see what her research path will be

Musketeers try to march toward Russia, with even the London-Drafted Musketeer heading that way after unloading in Orleans; two Musketeers can help with attacking Heliopolis next turn, probably amphibiously assaulting the City, with 2 Horse Archers on standby to clean up if we fail to kill the 2 Archers there


Is the infinite-Galley idea what we want to do with Argent? Or, should we simply build Catapults/Trebuchets/Horse Archers/Musketeeers/Knights?

As long as Churchill's Culture is on the coast, the Galley chain won't work, until we declare war on Churchill, which could complicate things when we try to take Kublai as our Vassal--either Kublai might not want to fight against Churchill or he might later come in and raze Katty when we're not looking

We will have to keep an eye on the F4 TECHS screen to see which AI no longer wants Feudalism to know when said AI has learned Feudalism; I'd suggest that we add Feudalism and Machinery to the "do not give to an AI" tech list

We're also going to have to figure out the timing of capturing Orenburg, which is why we probably should consider Drafting in both Rostov and St. Pete's next turn, as, with Engineering, those Musketeers could enter Orenburg's Cultural Borders next turn, then possibly attempt to capture the City on the following turn... or, preferably, we just wait 1 extra turn and use the Musketeeer that's coming from Germany, along with a healed HA 10 (it can heal in Moscow) to go in with those 2 Drafted Musketeeers from this turn, giving us 4 Units that can move 2 squares, so that we won't leave anything up to luck.

I imagine that St. Pete's could potentially 2-pop-whip a Theatre for overflow Hammers if we can manage to put 4 or less Hammers into it.

As of this turn, we have 4 Workers arriving on the 4 Forests (1 Worker per Forest) that we'd Chop after gifting Cities to Kublai

We should probably try to come up with an overall better plan for our Galleys, although "dodging Triremes until we capture 2 more Cities from Hatty and get a Cease Fire with Hatty" seems to be the current approach

When we Cease Fire with Hatty, we'll have to just take a Cease Fire--and, watch out for an AI offering Capitulation--we must only take Capitulation from Kublai later, and not from any other AI, as "Capitulation" means taking on that AI as a Vassal, and if we were to take on two AIs as a Vassal, we would automatically lose this game according to the game's rules of only being allowed to have 1 Vassal at any given time. In case it's not clear, Hatty would make for a terrible Vassal, while Kublai would make for a great Vassal, since then we won't have to own his Cities and expand the Cultural Borders of those same Cities--we can just use his Culture for our railroad tracks

I haven't gifted Macau to Joao yet as I'd like to 1-pop-whip a Chariot there first, so we'll probably gift him the City after the Chariot exists. If we've managed to deal with Hatty's Triremes or have managed to capture both Heliopolis and Memphis and have taken a Cease Fire with Hatty (right now it looks like we should just hide our Galley with 2 Musketeers aboard it in Joao's Culture near to Heliopolis for this turn and amphibiously assault Heliopolis next turn), it shouldn't be too hard to land most of our troops at Oporto, probably on Joao's Plains Cow, because we can ignore Hatty's Triremes after we take Heliopolis and Memphis and then Cease Fire with Hatty


Besides The Taj Mahal and possibly The National Epic in St. Pete's, are there any other Wonders that we need to consider building? No AI is likely to build Versailles for us, unfortunately. The Hagia Sophia will be pointless, as it does the same thing as Steam Power and thus gets obsolete by Steam Power, which we need for our locomotives. So, probably the answer is "no," meaning that after we've gotten our Chops resolved at St. Pete's, we should be able to slip into Pacifism on the following turn, at which time we'd hire Specialists in some of our Cities (despite our heavy Drafting), with the goal of getting at least 3 different Great People, with some extra Great Artists or Great Spies being also welcome. Once we have a lock on our Great People, we can then switch into Free Religion, as that Civic is great for a teching game

I changed my mind... Hamburg can grow to Size 6 again in 2 turns, then Draft. If we're going to hire Specialists here, say, after 1-pop-whipping a Theatre to be able to hire Artist Specialists, then we'll need somewhere else to build our Settler--I think that Orleans makes more sense, after we complete Orleans' Forge, since Orleans will eventually have to give the Cow back to Paris and thus won't be a good City in which to hire Specialists. Once Hamburg's Theatre and Artist Specialists take over the 2nd Sheep, it'll be a decent GPP City


T132, 425 AD
Our Spy's Hammers in Lyons disappeared due to a Sabotage Production Espionage Mission

We learn Engineering, making Roads faster than Forests for our Woodsmen II Units and making Musketeers and Horse Archers capable of moving up to 6 squares per turn

Hatty starts research on Divine Right but it will take her forever (39 turns) to learn it, so we should recapture Jackpot now... I don't see any useful Espionage Missions to perform, so I simply recapture the City

The Barb Galley decided to go after our Aberdeen Fish at 1 SE of Aberdeen, so we'll probably have to defend with our Galley and hope that we win

It's so hard to keep up with Unit upgrades! Our whipped Spearman in Gold Coast has become a partially-whipped Pikeman. It's a good thing that we didn't need it this turn! :0

We whip Moscow's Jewish Missionary and can overflow into a Chariot, in preparation for the City being gifted away; after the Chariot, we can build Wealth until we are ready to gift the City away

Next turn, Yar should be able to whip its Buddhist Missionary just as we Chop into the City, and then on the following turn, we complete another Chop, which should give us enough Hammers to complete our Maceman, after which point we might be ready to gift the Cities

Remember that when we gift the Cities, we'll have to gift Orenburg first and if Kublai doesn't want to take Cities, we first cancel our Gold per Turn trade to Kublai without starting up a new Gold per Turn trade, and then we can gift him 1 Gold per Turn at a time until he wants to take the Cities, which is not the same thing as the banned Resource Subsidy Trading, since we'll just be giving him Gold per Turn to get him to accept gifted Cities from us and we won't be gifting him Gold per Turn in order to have him turn around and pay us more Gold per Turn for our Resources (whereas gifting Gold per Turn in order to be able to get more Gold per Turn in return for trading is a banned tactic/exploit/approach as far as this competition is concerned).

Transylvania whips its Granary in preparation for gifting the City away and then we can complete a Chariot followed by building Wealth (for probably a turn) before we are ready to gift the City away

There's a Barb Galley by Ivory Coast; I'm not sure what to do about it

We could theoretically attack Heliopolis this turn, but then our Galley would probably get sunk, so I would advise that we wait a turn to attack Heliopolis by hiding our Galley (with 2 Musketeers aboard) from Hatty's Trireme in Joao's Culture this turn, within range of Heliopolis, with the thinking that next turn, we can Cease Fire after capturing 2 Cities, meaning that we won't care how close Hatty's 2 Triremes end up being to our Galleys next turn (but we still care on the current turn)

Similarly, we could probably wait until next turn to take Memphis, by leading with a suicidal Catapult, now that a third Archer has appeared there

I'll be handing off the game shortly

Maybe Worker 16 (just completed our Transylvania Fort) should plan to pre-Chop at 1 W of Transylvania, just in case our Culture can swamp that square for St. Pete's to steal the Chop, although I doubt that we'd overpower Kublai's Culture from him being Creative, but I suppose that it can't hurt to be prepared. The 4 Workers who can Chop stolen Forests can start Chopping this turn and then after 2 turns of Chopping, if we're not ready to gift Cities, they could probably build a partial Road for a turn and then STOP, in anticipation of being able to Chop at a moment's notice on the following turn

Saved game from Central

 

[Jersey Joe]

If Orleans swaps GH Mine for Farm with Cologne it will be able to draft sooner.
I think Lyons and London can draft on both T130 and T131

 

[Jersey Joe]

I am okay with Printing Press after Engineering. Think out loud: We should watch that no AI has starts teching liberalism. Right now it looks like Joao is the only one that could.

 

[Jersey Joe]

I got it. Playing.

 

[Folket]

Good luck.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Not finished Playing but have questions. So far except, for a barbarian galley, things are going in our favor.
T132, 425AD (continued)
Research rate 100%
Espionage rate 0% on Hatty

Rostov drafts.
Attacks on Heliopolis and Memphis postponed owing to Triremes.

Between Turns: Barb galley sinks our galley and destroys fishing nets.
Hatty&#8217;s galley south of Ivory Coast does not destroy our fish nets Hatty has a settler in Elephantine.
Darius builds Dai Miao.
Argent finishes Heroic Epic and starts on Musketeer.

T133, 450AD
Research rate 100%
Espionage rate 0% on Hatty
Yar whips missionary and gets a chop.

Islamic Missionary in Edirne cannot make the journey to Susa since we do not have open borders with Darius.

At Memphis: Our Catapult dies attacking an Archer. Horse Archer kills an Archer. Musketeer kills Horse Archer. Our Elephant Kills an Archer and captures Memphis (pillaged for 146 gold and 5 workers). We install a new Governor. Unfortunately we only get a Granary. In the Category of fishing for xp: A Horse Archer kills a lone Egyptian Catapult, and a Horse Archer kills a lone Egyptian Archer.

At Heliopolis: Musketeer kills Archer. Musketeer kills Archer. Musketeer kills War Chariot and captures Heliopolis (no buildings).

Our Trireme vs Hatty&#8217;s only has a 33% chance of winning so I decline battle.

Questions:
Hatty is down to 2 cities (Elephantine and Pi-Ramses) get a cease fire?

There is a sign at Edirne that reads "spread to Darius Susa". We do not have open borders should I get them?

Gandhi has Dye available for trade (he may take fur and/or deer) should I trade with him?

Where should the Christian missionaries spread? I was thinking that one being built in Paris could go to Thebes. The other one was by Orleans and caught a galley to St. Pete where to now?

Troops on the Russian front are ready to attack Orenburg. Should we declare this turn or wait?

Jewish missionary from Moscow spreads in Paris?

Edit: After Printing Press, how about Chemistry then back fill (Guilds and Banking) to Replaceable Parts?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Hatty is down to 2 cities (Elephantine and Pi-Ramses) get a cease fire?

Yes to a Cease Fire with Hatty, please. Those Cities will be junk for us to own--Pi-Ramesses has 2 Fish Resources but they have not been netted and the City it as at the far edge of the map, so it will have a high Maintenance Cost and the City is not located in a location that will help us strategically, nor will it help us with our Railroad--owning that City won't do much of anything for us.

Besides, it's better to not have to fight Hatty's Triremes, so a Cease Fire is to our advantage. We should be preparing to get as many troops on Galleys as possible to drop off at Joao.

There is a sign at Edirne that reads "spread to Darius Susa". We do not have open borders should I get them?

Yes to Open Borders with Darius. We're nearing the end of the game, and while we'll almost certainly end up going for a Cultural Victory, it doesn't hurt to ensure that every AI has Islam in at least one of their small-sized Cities, to at least keep open the possibility of an AP Victory.

Gandhi has Dye available for trade (he may take fur and/or deer) should I trade with him?

Yes, please. An extra Happiness Resource will be very welcome. With the game approaching the end, there are less turns for AIs to complain to us about trading with their Worst Enemies.

Where should the Christian missionaries spread? I was thinking that one being built in Paris could go to Thebes. The other one was by Orleans and caught a galley to St. Pete where to now?

The one that caught a Galley can go to Istanbul, since, as you have already indicated, we need 100 Culture in that City to be able to complete our Railroad. As we get closer to the end of the game, we'll also want to bring along Settlers and Workers with us when we attack Mao, and we MAY want to consider bringing Missionaries with us at that time, as well, but for now, I'd spread Missionaries in Cities of ours. Thebes sounds fine for the Paris-built one, as it's feasible that we'd hire Specialists in Thebes, and there may be downtime for our Galleys when troops drop off at Joao for our Paris-built Missionary to catch a boat to Africa.

Troops on the Russian front are ready to attack Orenburg. Should we declare this turn or wait?

If you feel that you are ready to move in toward Orenburg, to minimally start Bombarding if the defences look to strong to capture the City with the army that you have, go ahead. You could also consider using the Great General on some of our Units either before our Units move in or on a future turn after we've already moved toward Orenburg. Great Generals work just as well for assigning XP when in enemy territory, but be careful not to leave the Great General unguarded near to Stalin's Cultural Borders or a Chariot or a Horse Archer may surprise kill our Great General.

Make sure that you can hold Moscow--Stalin is unlikely to have built Horse Archers yet while in peacetime, but he has the capability to build them now that the Horse by Moscow has been reconnected.

The sooner that we capture Orenburg, the sooner that we can steal Forests for St. Pete's, and the sooner that we can, on the turn after our Chops have been completed, switch into Pacifism to get our Great People for our 3-Great-Person Golden Age, and then the sooner that we can afterward switch into Free Religion to help with speeding our tech pace to Railroad.

Jewish missionary from Moscow spreads in Paris?

Yes, please. Every little bit of Flask multiplier in Paris will help us out, particularly if we refrain from any further whipping and Drafting in Paris.

After Printing Press, how about Chemistry then back fill (Guilds and Banking) to Replaceable Parts?

Have we built any Watermills or Windmills yet for Replaceable Parts to do anything for us? I hadn't built any, but perhaps you have started on some. I don't think that we'd build Lumbermills anywhere--if we have Worker turns to move a Worker to a Forest, I'd Chop that Forest at this stage of the game.

If we're running low on Gold, then building Wealth in high-production Cities, such as XO Cognac, will be better than building Grocers and Banks.

I was thinking Printing Press -> Chemistry -> Steel, at which point Argent could build a Drydock and then it would make sense to spam Galleys, as those Galleys would each get 4 XP for Flanking 1 + Navigation 1 Promotions and with the extra production bonus from the Drydock, we'd have a ton of overflow Hammers each turn that would get converted into Gold, so we'd make money by building a fleet of speedy Galleys.

Note that learning Steel would turn all Catapults and Trebuchets in our build queues into Cannons, so if we wanted to complete a Catapult or a Trebuchet, we should plan to finish it on the turn before we learn Steel, possibly via whipping (i.e. we'd whip 2 turns before learning Steel if we were going to whip a Catapult or a Trebuchet).

Alternatively, if we don't feel the need for speedy Galleys, we could have Argent pump out Cannons, which could be partially Galley-chained but will still take several turns after having been built to arrive at Mao.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Also, we might want to think about a new target for our Espionage.

Assuming that we remember to gift Macau to Joao after having whipped a Chariot in Macau and before declaring war on Joao, then Joao might actually be our best target for our EPs for making London a Legendary City.

Ideally, we'll pick an AI with whom we can easily get Open Borders. Joao will Open Borders at Cautious, and I think that we'll still be able to be at Cautious with him after we capture Oporto and Lisbon but leave him alive in Macau and then Cease Fire with him. We also have to pick an AI other than Churchill for London, so Joao seems to be a good fit.

Note that London will have to generate its Great Person before we gift London away, so it might be wise to start hiring Specialists in London immediately and stop Drafting in London. Even without Pacifism, we still get a decent amount of Great People Points during a Golden Age when hiring Specialists.


Later, for Lisbon and Macau to become Legendary, we'll need an AI other than Joao to own those Cities (and also an AI other than Hatty to own Macau), and hopefully that AI will be an AI with whom we can get Open Borders.


But, for now, Joao is probably our best bet for all of the Weight of our EPs. We don't really need to see Stalin's Cities via Espionage, as we'll have Units who will see what's in his Cities soon enough, and the initial war is only really capture Orenburg, hold Moscow, and possibly Pillage Stalin's Horse Resource and Iron Resources while we wait for more troops to arrive before taking down Novgorod.

Since we are low on siege Units, I'd suggest not suiciding our Catapult at Orenburg and just use him to Bombard, so that we can also use him to Bombard at Novgorod.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Actually, are we able to bribe Joao to attack Hatty?

If yes, then we should probably strongly consider doing so with any tech other than Nationalism before we Cease Fire with Hatty. (We don't want to give away Nationalism in case that tech were to fall into the hands of an AI who gets a Great Engineer.)

Doing so would ensure that we can get Open Borders with Hatty after we declare war on Joao, due to us sharing a mutual war with Hatty after we declare war on Joao.

The last that I checked, though, Joao had his "hands full" and thus was not able to be bribed, but it's worth checking again.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Also, I wonder if Argent might be better off building Trebs than Musketeers in the short term. Trebs built now will have time to arrive at the front lines.

We will go back into Bureaucracy soon (when we go into Pacifism), meaning that we'll have been able to have Drafted at least 18 Musketeers, and if necessary, we can later Draft up to another 18 more with another 5 turns in Nationhood, so it will be easy enough to create Muskteers via Drafting.


Hamburg might be a good City in which to whip a Theatre (possibly 1-pop-whip it if we have some overflow Hammers from another build item), if we haven't already done so, so that we can hire Artist Specialists to steal the 2nd Sheep back from Frederick and so that we can expand the City's Cultural Borders one more time, meaning that if we capture Munich at the very end of the game, we'll immediately have Cultural Borders over the nearby squares for our Railroad, without having to wait for Munich to come out of City Resistance.

 

[Jersey Joe]

So gift Macau to Joao and attack soon after. (I want to make sure our core cities have a little protection.) I am moving troops to Heliopolis for the invasion (if not loaded on a Galley) This will give the Musketeers that captured Heliopolis a turn maybe 2 to heal. I have no problem with Steel after Chemistry. I guess ideally we would learn liberalism and take rail roads for our bonus tech.

Edit:Right Argent now it is building a Musketeer to kill the Russian Spearman close to our workers. Maybe alternate in Argent Treb over flow into Musketter back to treb building a unit a turn. I did not check the math but it should be doable.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

So gift Macau to Joao and attack soon after.

Yes, please.

(I want to make sure our core cities have a little protection.)

Good call. We don't want to lose XO Cognac to an amphibious assault.

I guess ideally we would learn liberalism and take rail roads for our bonus tech.

It's not just an ideal; we're going to ensure that it happens!


The toughest part will be getting enough Gold to carry our way through our remaining techs while also managing to build enough of the other items needed to win, including a ton of Spies and a couple of Settlers for Mao.


Once Kublai is our Vassal, we'll gift him some techs:
Feudalism, Metal Casting, Machinery, and Civil Service

At some point, we'd also need to gift him Gunpowder, Chemistry, Steel, Paper, Printing Press, Guilds, Banking, Replaceable Parts, Steam Power, and Railroad, with us planning to start gifting him techs early enough that we'll be able to gift him Railroad just after we learn Railroad (I think that you have to wait 1 turn after learning a tech via Liberalism to be able to gift it, though).

With any luck, Kublai won't go for Education and thus will stay away from Liberalism, but if we gift him the later techs close to the end of the game with good timing, he shouldn't be able to steal Liberalism from us even if he goes for it.

Basically, we'd want the chance for Kublai to possibly build some Railroad pieces for us; although we couldn't rely on him to do a whole lot, every little bit may help.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Right Argent now it is building a Musketeer to kill the Russian Spearman close to our workers.

That's fine. Go ahead and complete that Musketeer, since we have a very good use for him. Workers are important to keep alive, after all!


On that note, do we need to delay the war with Stalin because of his Spearman being able to attack our Worker?

Do we need to move a Chariot Military Police Unit to St. Pete's and put the St. Pete's Axeman on a Galley to help to protect our Worker from Stalin's Spearman? Watch out for any Roads that we have built that Stalin's Spearman will be able to use.


Also, since we lost our Galley near England, I suppose that we'll have to build a new one, in order to get Spies shipped over to London. Maybe York can 2-pop-whip one?


Since our Egypt Cities are so far out of the way, they probably won't be able to contribute much in terms of useful production items. But, what we could highly consider doing is spamming Spies out of those Cities and sending all of those Spies to Alexandria.

We already have 2500 seed Culture in Alexandria. We have about the same in Thebes, but giving Thebes away may cause complications with our Civics (losing The Pyramids or The Shwedagon Paya) or The Apostolic Palace (losing that Wonder) that we might not be able to easily predict.

Temporarily losing The Great Library in Alexandria and recapturing it won't have any ill effects on us.

Thebes can probably be used to generate a Great Person, but the other Egyptian Cities, including Alexandria itself, could probably just aim to whip a ton of Spies for Alexandria.

With 2500 seed Culture, we'll need 62 successful Spread Culture Espionage Missions, so about 80 Spies, so we should get to work on whipping those Spies as soon as we can. 80 Spies is a tall order--a single City might be able to put less than 10 Hammers into a Spy, 2-pop-whip it on the next turn, complete another Spy with overflow Hammers after maybe 2 more turns, then repeat the cycle, meaning 2 Spies every 4 turns. That's going to take a long time, so we need to get started now.

The same amount of importance should be placed on Spies for London, with Aberdeen and Ruby Bay probably Drafting once first and then spamming whipped Spies.


Now we may have a better appreciation for why it could be helpful to get Islam spread, assuming that the AP Resolutions work out in our favour, as a Cultural Victory doesn't come cheaply.


We'll probably need even more than 80 Spies in total for London (81 successful spreads, so possibly 100 Spies, if London only had 1000 base Culture in it), which is why England Cities and mainland Cities will be making Spies for London.


The Spies that survive their Missions from London and Alexandria can then be later used in Lisbon, although we'll probably need another 81 successful Spread Culture Missions there, as Beijing had the most Culture in the world at 1200 Culture, after Thebes and Alexandria fell.


Paris should steal back its Cow from Orleans, if it hasn't done so already.


Also, remember that for any AI with whom we will be soon going to war (Joao, Stalin, Kublai, and then Mao), we should not be giving in to that AI's Demand/Request for a tech, as we don't want to be locked into 10 turns of Peace with said AI.