Fine with plan except as noted above. Will wait for feedback on suggestions before playing.Nicely done! Don't worry, we'll get through the challenges ahead of us.Not so nicely done, and I remain worried, but appreciate the support.
Skip turn instead of Sentry Will do.
Orenburg (Desert City)
As a general comment on tactics, had Orenburg been lightly-defended with the typical 2 City Defenders, taking the Worker first when we only had 5 attackers might have meant not capturing the City. I was not planning to take the city, as that would risk loosing units needed for Moscow. Just thought I'd snatch a worker while finding out what was in the city.
Chariot 5 is doomed, but what can we do about it to make him give us the most bang for our buck? I'd say that we move him 1 NE Plains to 1 N of Orenburg. Doing so forces Stalin to split up his troops to go after both Chariot 5 and the captured Worker, leaving less troops to marge on Yaroslavl'. Probably a better idea than mine, but curious if you are confident that putting all the units on the road wouldn't work.
Keeping our troops inside of Yaroslavl' this turn and then reacting to what Stalin does is our best play at the moment, allowing us the freedom to attack split-up Units, to defend (defenders get the advantage when mixed troops are involved), or to gift the City and run away. If we leave all units in Yaro, then that will allow Stalin to move units onto the forest 1E of the city, where we will have no chance to damage even a divided army. What about leaving the wounded chariot, the healthy chariot, and HA11 (which lacks shock, but is just as good a defender against Stalin's lone HA) in Yaro and moving the axe and two (or perhaps just one) shock HA's onto the forest? Arguably our best chance of getting out of this is to have him attack our triple axe on that forest. I don't think he'll do it, but it would keep him off the forest.
Frederick
I don't know how you managed to bribe him, but it looks like he is going to finish off the Road between Orleans and Cologne.
Well, there are only three turns left in our Peace Treaty, and the road would be quite useful to him if he takes Cologne. Do BtS AI's have that sophistication?.
Moscow and St. Pete's
I don't know what the right level of explanation is supposed to be for a PPP. I'd actually planned to play that turnset if someone had been around to approve the PPP, so I didn't explain inside of the PPP (I mentioned the subject out of the PPP but didn't explain it clearly) why I suggested putting our Axeman 6 (Woodsman II) at 1 E of St. Pete's--it was to try to bait Moscow's Spearmen to come toward St. Pete's.
The thinking is that we'd have our Axemen form a wall on the Forests, forcing any Spearmen that came at the Chariot-defended St. Pete's to walk around our Forest-defending Axemen onto flatland squares. Never occurred to me that he might do that. Was trying to bait him into doing just what you fear. Now, we've left a gap and Spearmen can go straight toward St. Pete's through the gap, allowing them to walk on a Forest instead of the hoped-for flatland. In the end, Stalin might not take the bait, so it may not matter, but if he takes the bait, the Spearmen won't be easy pickings in a Forest. Yes, but we don't have to attack him. We can move an axe into city (and perhaps Argent cat if he sends two spears) and also cut spear(s) off from Moscow with an axe.
England
It works as follows: each turn, 1 Unhealthiness will wear off for the next 8 turns. Then, it's not good for growth, but manageable.
So, we'll whip York this turn (to earn us back 1 Healthiness) and we'll avoid completing the Forests next turn (to maintain 1 Healthiness). Follow that.
What happened to Churchill's Worker? Did it get disbanded? I suppose that we would have seen it if it were to the east of Axeman 3 (Woody II) and if it were to the east, you'd have mentioned it, right? I intended to mention it, but failed. The worker could have been captured on the fur if the axe had not been needed for Not. May not be there after IBT, but we should check.
Ruby Bay has a Chariot in it who could move in advance of the rest of the stack toward London, so that we don't have 4 Units trying to board the Galley all on the same turn as each other. Was going to let it heal, but concur that moving it this turn will allow it to board and sail next turn, jump off into Orleans the following turn as galley returns and picks up the two healthy chariots. Suggest the HA heal in York.
Southern Navy
No comments from anyone... I suppose that the safest play is to have Galley 6 head toward Lyons. I suppose that Galley 7 can push a bit further eastward, but I'm not sure that he'll play any useful role there, with so many Peaks in the region. Better knowledge of the map can't hurt.
Suggested PPP
SGOTM 23 - Xteam
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
CP: I can jump back in on Monday if someone else does not volunteer.
Dhoom: Instead of building a a city to gift to Churchill so we can raze and replace Vlad (2 settlers = 200 hammers), why not let him keep it? A catapult + library + courthouse = 200 hammers. With the current location of Vlad, St Pete's gets to work all 3 fish which means more specialists.
Dhoom: Instead of building a a city to gift to Churchill so we can raze and replace Vlad (2 settlers = 200 hammers), why not let him keep it? A catapult + library + courthouse = 200 hammers. With the current location of Vlad, St Pete's gets to work all 3 fish which means more specialists.
Dhoomstriker
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It depends upon what our goal is. Is our goal to decimate his army or to steal his Cities?
If it is to decimate his army, I don't think that we'll be on the winning side of the battle. He'd be able to attack our Units from the safety of his City, so any wounded surviving Unit would be untouchable by us. If we had a stack of Catapults or a stack of Riflemen, sure, but not really with what we have.
If it is to steal his Cities (which is what I believe we should remain focused on in the wars with Stalin), then I also don't see any battle where we're losing troops not to gain a City being beneficial.
The biggest issue is that an AI doesn't fight the way that we do. They have no trouble sacrificing Units in order to kill off our Units. They'll throw a large stack at our smaller stack, happy to lose twice as many Units in order to wipe out our entire stack. Human vs human, you'd see a different result, or you vs an AI, you'd probably play it differently, but if we were to do that, expect to lose all of our Units.
I don't really know, but I'd give Frederick a tech if he asks for one. We're not prepared for a war with Frederick at the moment. I'd briefly considered asking Mehmed to attack both Stalin and Frederick, but I didn't want us having to refuse Mehmed's request to join in the war against Frederick, as we need Mehmed to be Pleased toward us if we want a shot at Mehmed's Marble.
While fighting battles in the field just for the sake of fighting usually doesn't get us very far, if we can get very easy wins where we take little damage, sometimes earn Promotions, and get rid of the Units that scare us (the Spearmen in Moscow), then yes, we would actually want to fight those battles.
Essentially, fighting these Spearmen with our Axemen in the field means not fighting them in Moscow where we are afraid of facing them, as our main attackers are still our Horse Archers and Chariots.
What's the point of baiting Spearmen to come at St. Pete's if we don't plan to kill off the Spearmen? If we bait them and leave them alone, they'll likely return to Moscow. If they come, we may just attack them in the Forest.
Sure, I'm just concerned about us getting our navy too far out of position and then realising in a moment of brilliance that if we'd only had our navy ready in a certain position, we could have done something important with it. Our whole attack on Russia was delayed for this very lack of foresight.
I don't see a way to fill a southern navy with troops at the moment, though, so I suppose that Galley 6 can just hang out near Lyons and Galley 7 can explore a bit more to the east. I don't really like using Galleys as exploring Units, but our Scout got killed off, and we don't currently have a better use for Galley 7, but I also don't really see much value in revealing a Barb City and then getting ourselves distracted by it.
If necessary, we gift Yaroslavl' to an AI with whom Stalin isn't at war (Churchill or Joao, with a preference for Churchill AFTER Cease Firing with Churchill, simply because we don't mind declaring war on Churchill a lot), but let's see where Stalin moves just how many of his troops.
We don't want to let Stalin recapture Yaroslavl', as then he'll have an immediately-functioning City that can produce more troops and he will have Cultural Borders in the area, making it tough for our Units to get around.
Who knows? Maybe Orenburg will be left relatively undefended and while Stalin sends his troops out, and then we dance around him and capture Orenburg while Yaroslavl' is in the hands of another AI. I doubt that we'd follow that approach, with our more likely approach being sending our Yaroslavl' troops toward Rostov until we are ready to converge on Moscow.
Dhoomstriker
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What we could do is move onto the Road, Pillage it, and move back into Yaroslavl' with a full-health mounted Unit. Doing so might force Stalin to go to the Forest, but that's okay, as we just want his army to avoid going for Moscow and we can have it chase us to Rostov.
I.e. Chariot 6 (in Yaroslavl') moves 1 SE P Road (0.5 movement) > Pillages the Road (1 movement) > returns to Yaroslavl' (0.5 movement).
New Vlad has a 4-Food GH Deer For square that Old Vlad does not possess, giving us enough Food to work a Silver Resource, to help pay for the City.
New Vlad then also builds a Fort at the Old Vlad location to give our northern navy the ability to chain units to the east. If we had that Fort passage now, it would be easy to capture Yekaterinburg, for example.
I.e. Chariot 6 (in Yaroslavl') moves 1 SE P Road (0.5 movement) > Pillages the Road (1 movement) > returns to Yaroslavl' (0.5 movement).
New Vlad has a 4-Food GH Deer For square that Old Vlad does not possess, giving us enough Food to work a Silver Resource, to help pay for the City.
New Vlad then also builds a Fort at the Old Vlad location to give our northern navy the ability to chain units to the east. If we had that Fort passage now, it would be easy to capture Yekaterinburg, for example.
Dhoomstriker
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I will have time on Monday, but if I'm playing, I'll need you to check in from time to time to review our plans and make sure that I'm not planning on doing some silly things, since we won't have anyone else available to review the plans.
Here are some battle odds:
Axeman with Combat II vs Spearman with Combat II in Forest: 75% odds, 5 hits to kill, can withstand 6 hits before dying
Axeman with Combat II vs Spearman with Combat II on flatland: 99% odds, 4 hits to kill, can withstand 8 hits before dying
Axeman with Woodsman II vs Spearman with Combat II in Forest: 65% odds, 5 hits to kill, can withstand 6 hits before dying
Axeman with Woodsman II vs Spearman with Combat II on flatland: 95% odds, 4 hits to kill, can withstand 7 hits before dying
Glad you can step in, Joe.
"What's the point of baiting Spearmen to come at St. Pete's if we don't plan to kill off the Spearmen? If we bait them and leave them alone, they'll likely return to Moscow. If they come, we may just attack them in the Forest." It gets them out of Moscow, and, as noted, we can cut it/them off from returning to Moscow, unless they do go onto a grass tile.
"What we could do is move onto the Road, Pillage it, and move back into Yaroslavl' with a full-health mounted Unit. Doing so might force Stalin to go to the Forest, but that's okay, as we just want his army to avoid going for Moscow and we can have it chase us to Rostov." Yes, was planning to do that, and perhaps next turn doing the same to the road to Rostov 1SW of Yaro.
Playing . . .
"What's the point of baiting Spearmen to come at St. Pete's if we don't plan to kill off the Spearmen? If we bait them and leave them alone, they'll likely return to Moscow. If they come, we may just attack them in the Forest." It gets them out of Moscow, and, as noted, we can cut it/them off from returning to Moscow, unless they do go onto a grass tile.
"What we could do is move onto the Road, Pillage it, and move back into Yaroslavl' with a full-health mounted Unit. Doing so might force Stalin to go to the Forest, but that's okay, as we just want his army to avoid going for Moscow and we can have it chase us to Rostov." Yes, was planning to do that, and perhaps next turn doing the same to the road to Rostov 1SW of Yaro.
Playing . . .
Report on turns 106 and 107:
T106: Execute plan. When he moves 1N of Orenburg, chariot 5 finds two archers -- 1E and 1SE of Orenburg
IBT:
We are now the worst enemy of KK
GGeneral born in Moscow
Spear advances on warrior
Axe appears on forest NE of Yaro
Settler 2E of Moscow seems to have abandoned his party and moved to 1S of Yekat
Axe and spear in that party have been joined by two more spears at 2E of Moscow
Stalin's Orenburg moves: sword kills chariot 1N of city and is joined by an archer there; big stack moves 1W of city, re-taking worker; and two archers and an axe remain in Orenburg (Appears to have been wise to remain in city and cut road.)
T107:
Execute plan except: leave worker 10 unmoved, as instructions unclear; capture English worker and see no need for a chariot to fogbust there, so leave unmoved (suggest heading him toward London instead)
No instructions on new Lyon worker or Egyptian spies
Note Munich defended by 2 archers, 3 spears, and an axe
Is there a danger of Yaro going into anarchy and weakening our units therein?
Save from central: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG023_BC0200_01.CivBeyondSwordSave
T106: Execute plan. When he moves 1N of Orenburg, chariot 5 finds two archers -- 1E and 1SE of Orenburg
IBT:
We are now the worst enemy of KK
GGeneral born in Moscow
Spear advances on warrior
Axe appears on forest NE of Yaro
Settler 2E of Moscow seems to have abandoned his party and moved to 1S of Yekat
Axe and spear in that party have been joined by two more spears at 2E of Moscow
Stalin's Orenburg moves: sword kills chariot 1N of city and is joined by an archer there; big stack moves 1W of city, re-taking worker; and two archers and an axe remain in Orenburg (Appears to have been wise to remain in city and cut road.)
T107:
Execute plan except: leave worker 10 unmoved, as instructions unclear; capture English worker and see no need for a chariot to fogbust there, so leave unmoved (suggest heading him toward London instead)
No instructions on new Lyon worker or Egyptian spies
Note Munich defended by 2 archers, 3 spears, and an axe
Is there a danger of Yaro going into anarchy and weakening our units therein?
Save from central: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG023_BC0200_01.CivBeyondSwordSave
Dhoomstriker
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Nice work, it seems that we've lived to fight another day!
The goal is to capture Cities and keep them out of Stalin's hands, not to engage his army while we hole-up in Yaroslavl'.
Eventually, we'll have to give away Yaroslavl'. The only questions are "when" and "to whom." Churchill is the preferred gift recipient as we can declare war on him at will at a later time, but he'd have to give us a Cease Fire first. "When" would ideally be after we've been able to 2-pop-whip a War Elephant out of Yaroslavl', but it may have to be before then.
When we do run, we'll likely want Units to head along the Road toward Rostov, rather than racing toward Moscow, so that we don't threaten Moscow prematurely with a large stack of non-siege Units.
Cutting a Road such as at 1 SW of Yaroslavl' would happen after all of our Units but 1 mounted Unit have used that Road to get away, and then the last mounted Unit would cut the Road on its way out of Yaroslavl'.
We'll need to keep all of our Units in Yaroslavl' having movement points next turn, in case we make the decision to gift Yaroslavl' and run away, as Stalin has Open Borders with both Churchill and Joao, meaning that Stalin would get a free kill out of any Unit that we leave inside of Yaroslavl'. Even if he didn't send his stack at us, an Axeman attacking one of our Chariots gets favourable odds.
As nice as it would be to get another War Elephant, if the stack of Stalin's Military Units approaches Yaroslavl', the losses that we'd sustain in order to get one more War Elephant would not be worth waiting to build it.
I can help with writing a plan on Sunday evening, but won't have time before then.
The idea with the Workers around Paris is to keep a chain of them Cottaging so that we don't have to lose Worker turns as they spread a plague of Cottages across of the land, ever moving forward in a chain of Cottages that they build, moving on before completing a Cottage so that later-arriving Workers can spend 1 turn being put into a Cottage for every time that such a Worker moves to a square without a Road and without a finished Cottage.
The captured Worker in England can Chop out the Forest at 1 SE of where we razed Nottingham, where we'll place the new Nottingham (or whatever we choose to call it).
We need to figure out whether it will be better to:
Complete the Work Boat in York with 1 Chop, then on the following turn Chop the second Forest into a Settler, slow-build the Settler until it is a 1-pop-whipping action, then whip the Settler
VS
Put 2 Chops into the Settler, plan to 1-pop-whip the Settler pretty soon, and then complete the Work Boat
Note that the Work Boat would take longer to arrive at the new Nottingham location than would the Settler.
I'm not sure why Stalin keeps sending his Spearmen to the east of Moscow, but as long as we don't threaten Moscow's big fat cross with too many non-siege Units, he may keep sending his Units away while we Bombard the City's Defences down, although I think that it will only be 2% Bombardment per Cat per turn thanks to those City Walls.
If we want to cut that Road, we should considering making use of it first ourselves.
The goal is to capture Cities and keep them out of Stalin's hands, not to engage his army while we hole-up in Yaroslavl'.
Eventually, we'll have to give away Yaroslavl'. The only questions are "when" and "to whom." Churchill is the preferred gift recipient as we can declare war on him at will at a later time, but he'd have to give us a Cease Fire first. "When" would ideally be after we've been able to 2-pop-whip a War Elephant out of Yaroslavl', but it may have to be before then.
When we do run, we'll likely want Units to head along the Road toward Rostov, rather than racing toward Moscow, so that we don't threaten Moscow prematurely with a large stack of non-siege Units.
Cutting a Road such as at 1 SW of Yaroslavl' would happen after all of our Units but 1 mounted Unit have used that Road to get away, and then the last mounted Unit would cut the Road on its way out of Yaroslavl'.
We'll need to keep all of our Units in Yaroslavl' having movement points next turn, in case we make the decision to gift Yaroslavl' and run away, as Stalin has Open Borders with both Churchill and Joao, meaning that Stalin would get a free kill out of any Unit that we leave inside of Yaroslavl'. Even if he didn't send his stack at us, an Axeman attacking one of our Chariots gets favourable odds.
As nice as it would be to get another War Elephant, if the stack of Stalin's Military Units approaches Yaroslavl', the losses that we'd sustain in order to get one more War Elephant would not be worth waiting to build it.
I imagine that Frederick will not be fought until we either have Macemen or Musketeers and can easily smash his army of Axemen and Spearmen into dust without us sustaining heavy losses.
Not given Stalin's current Cultural Borders. He'd need a different City directly putting Cultural pressure on Yaroslavl's City Centre square.
I can help with writing a plan on Sunday evening, but won't have time before then.
The idea with the Workers around Paris is to keep a chain of them Cottaging so that we don't have to lose Worker turns as they spread a plague of Cottages across of the land, ever moving forward in a chain of Cottages that they build, moving on before completing a Cottage so that later-arriving Workers can spend 1 turn being put into a Cottage for every time that such a Worker moves to a square without a Road and without a finished Cottage.
The captured Worker in England can Chop out the Forest at 1 SE of where we razed Nottingham, where we'll place the new Nottingham (or whatever we choose to call it).
We need to figure out whether it will be better to:
Complete the Work Boat in York with 1 Chop, then on the following turn Chop the second Forest into a Settler, slow-build the Settler until it is a 1-pop-whipping action, then whip the Settler
VS
Put 2 Chops into the Settler, plan to 1-pop-whip the Settler pretty soon, and then complete the Work Boat
Note that the Work Boat would take longer to arrive at the new Nottingham location than would the Settler.
I'm not sure why Stalin keeps sending his Spearmen to the east of Moscow, but as long as we don't threaten Moscow's big fat cross with too many non-siege Units, he may keep sending his Units away while we Bombard the City's Defences down, although I think that it will only be 2% Bombardment per Cat per turn thanks to those City Walls.
Not good. What do you think he'll do with his GG in Moscow?
Dhoomstriker
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EDIT: A quick test shows that Bombarding with a Catapult will remove 4% City Defences per Bombardment (as opposed to 8% without a City Wall in place). It's when there's a Castle that Bombarding is only 2% per turn.
Removing a City Wall via the World Builder (which is presumably the same as using a Spy to Sabotage a City Wall Building) partway through Bombardment may or may not reduce the remaining City Defences--I saw it happen for one City but not for the other City. Unfortunately, we don't have time to get Spies in place, so we'll just have to stick with 4% per Catapult per turn.
Thanks for mentioning where the Great General appeared! It's certainly not visible on the map anymore. Perhaps it got settled there or perhaps it ran away. It's up to you to tell us via the "Show Enemy Moves" game option as to where Units may have moved, so if you have that game option on (in the main game Options--Ctrl + o), and you didn't see it move anywhere, then it must have settled itself in Moscow (which is better than it getting used to join to a Unit).
Please don't sacrifice our Military Units. Stalin can rebuild his troops at will, but we cannot. Every Unit of ours counts. Also, every loss that we sustain means Stalin not talking for a longer period of time, so what may seem like buying us time actually makes us pay more turns of having to face Stalin in battle, meaning more losses overall from the extra turns where he's producing Military Units from every City and will not talk with us. Plus, you may not feel like it now, but every Chariot that we have puts us one bit closer to actually being able to succeed at capturing Moscow, instead of failing to capture it. The same may not be true of War Elephants, since it takes a Chariot two turns to be able to march toward Moscow and attack, while it will take a War Elephant 3 to 4 turns to do the same, and every extra turn means +1 City Defender, and +1 City Defender requires +2 to +3 attackers to kill it.
If we can capture Moscow, even with our last Chariot, we don't need to hold the City and can gift it away to Churchill until we can get Stalin to talk with us, then take it away from Churchill once we have a Cease Fire with Stalin. If we really need to use a Unit to bait Stalin, we can consider doing so next turn, without putting it in a position where it will die, but I'd suggest waiting until we see what Stalin has done before moving any of our Military Units near Russia next turn (other than unloading a Catapult directly into St. Pete's).
It is probably a pipe dream of expecting to get a War Elephant out of Yaroslavl', but we'll likely buy a turn while the Combat I + Shock + Medic I Axeman in Stalin's main stack heals--an AI stack tends to stick together as a stack and thus when one Unit needs to heal, they all waste time waiting for it to heal. That turn is an illusion, though, since we actually cannot complete a War Elephant until T110, 3 turns from now. I'd even suggest giving away Yaroslavl' now if Churchill were willing to talk with us, so as to avoid luring Stalin's stack and then hope that it would either go for Rostov or go for Mehmed, rather than moving diagonally toward Moscow and then being able to either defend Moscow or make an assault on St. Pete's.
Along the lines of luring Stalin at Rostov, it's not a bad idea to leave Rostov only defended by a wounded Chariot, to try to lure his army in that direction.
Rostov can quickly make 2 War Elephants itself, with one being 2-pop-whipped and one being Chopped + 1-pop-whipped.
We could at least have the Rostov War Elephants move toward Moscow, though, to replace the Catapult defenders, then have the Catapult defenders retreat away from threatening Moscow, as the Catapult defenders (a Woodsman II Axeman and a Horse Archer) can later move quickly back toward Moscow. I don't think that we'd have the same luxury with a Yaroslavl'-built War Elephant and such a Unit would probably have to stay in Yaroslavl', where we might end up losing too many useful 2-movement-point attackers in order to get the War Elephant, making the Yaroslavl' War Elephant not worth it unless Stalin's stack continues to avoid approaching Yaroslavl'.
Yes, one of Stalin's Cities (one of the Cities that he currently owns) must have its Cultural Borders extending over top of one of our captured Cities in order for that captured City to be under threat of going into City Revolt.
The Spies in Egypt will just wait on the Stone Resources. We don't dare to spend the EPs on Sabotaging Resources just yet, as we don't know how many EPs we will need to steal Hatty's techs--we may need all of the EPs that we have saved up on Hatty in order to get her techs. We have a one-turn window in which to steal her techs.
Sabotaging Hatty's Stone Resources now won't help us, as Mehmed needs to be Pleased toward us before we'd benefit from Sabotaging Hatty's Stone Resources, as Mehmed will only trade us his freed-up Marble Resource if he is Pleased toward us and Mehmed is currently Cautious toward us.
As such, I think that we should play it safely and stop trading a Resource with Darius, as Darius is Mehmed's Worst Enemy. Getting Corn from Darius is not worth missing out on building MoM, the National Epic, and the Heroic Epic, not to mention later The Taj Mahal.
Okay, if we get the York Work Boat first, we don't Chop either Forest next turn, we instead 1-pop-whip the Work Boat next turn, then, on the following turn (T109), we'll have regrown to Size 2 just as we put overflow Hammers from the Work Boat and 2 Chops into the Settler, which minimizes the time needed to be able to 1-pop-whip the Settler (only needing to spend 1 turn building the Settler before the Settler becomes a 1-pop-whipping action). Sounds perfect.
Sure, by the very nature of Chopping out a location for New Nottingham to be settled, the Worker in England will be spawn-busting, so we don't need to keep any Military Units in England for spawn-busting purposes, particularly with Churchill's Galley having been sunk in Nottingham and thus our Cities not being under threat of an amphibious assault (unless you want to tell us that Churchill's Galley sailed away before we captured Nottingham, but I don't see it anywhere).
We may need 1 Unit in England to act as a Military Police Unit for London; perhaps we'll use Axeman 3, since it will take him quite a number of turns to arrive in Russia, but we don't have to decide which Unit yet... perhaps it will be the Axeman that gets built in London.
Suggested PPP
T107, 200 BC
Cancel this trade with Darius:
Corn to Napoleon REAL for Sheep
Ask Mehmed to attack Moscow
Worker 6 (in Lyons): Rename him to Worker 13
That Worker can move 1 NW G Riv Road Farm > 1 W G Riv > Cottage
Worker 2 (1 N of Gold Coast) STOPS (we can have him help to Road the Incense next turn, to save Hatty's Worker a turn)
Paris switches G For to that 1 SE + 1 S Cottage
Athens switches PH Mine -> GH Mine
Athens works: Fish, Sheep, GH Mine, and PH Mine
Worker 10 (2 S of Rostov) starts Chopping the P For Road (for our 2nd Rostov-built War Elephant)
Zhuge (in Rostov) moves 1 E and Skips his turn
Axe 6 (2 E of St. Pete's) moves 1 S GH For Road and Skips his turn (to guard our Cats)
Cat 2 (1 SE of St. Pete's) moves 1 E GH For Road
Cat 3 (1 SE of St. Pete's) moves 1 E GH For Road
HA 4 (3 S of St. Pete's) moves 1 NE G Riv Wheat > 1 NE GH For Road (to guard our Cats)
Now that we have two stack defenders for our Cats without making any misclicks:
Axe 4 (1 SE of St. Pete's) moves 1 NW into St. Pete's (to avoid threatening Moscow)
Axe 8 (3 N of Rostov) moves 1 S G Riv Fur For (getting him closer to our army without being in Moscow's Cultural Borders)
Chariot 18 stays in St. Pete's
Chariot 17 (1 E of Ruby Bay) moves toward London along the Roads
T108
Ask Mehmed to attack Moscow
York 1-pop-whips Work Boat
Hamburg 1-pop-whips Catapult
Cologne 1-pop-whips Granary
Ivory Coast's Work Boat moves 1 W and nets the Fish
Ivory Coast works: Netted Fish
Rostov 2-pop-whips the War Elephant
Lyons-build Chariot moves into Paris to act as a Military Police Unit
Paris may need to assign what its citizen should work; note that we will want to work the 1 S G Riv, as it will get Cottaged this turn
Worker in the north-east of England can be named Worker 14
That Worker moves 1 SW G For (to 1 S of the TunH Sheep)
Axeman 3 (in north-east England) can use Forests to make his way toward London, say, 1 SW G For > 1 SW G For
Chariot 9 (in southern Egypt) keeps making his way out of the Desert pathway
Spy 11 (2 N of Ivory Coast) can move to Egypt's last Stone Resource
Worker 1 (1 S of Paris) moves 1 NW G Riv and Cottages
Worker 2 (1 N of Gold Coast) moves 1 NE Des Incense and Roads
Worker 3 moves 1 SW GH Deer For (we can Road that square)
If the Spearman has followed our Warrior 1, our Warrior 1 can also move 1 SW GH Deer For; otherwise, our Warrior 1 can just stay on the GH for now
Worker 4 moves 1 SE GH Gems Road Mine > 1 NE G For (1 SW of the Tun Iron) (we can Road this square for our Settler to connect up with the Iron's Road, allowing our Settler to be able to resettle Nottingham very quickly)
Worker 5 moves 1 N G Road > 1 NE G Riv Road (1 SE of Ruby Bay) > partial Farm > STOP (we'll Chop at York on T109)
Worker 6 (1 SE of Ruby Bay) partial Farm > STOP (we'll Chop at York on T109)
Worker 8 move 1 S G Riv (1 W of Cologne) and Farm
Worker 11 ( 1 SE + 1 E of Rostov) move 2 W to the P For at 1 S of Rostov
Worker 12 (1 SE + 1 S of Paris) move 1 NW G Riv and Cottage
Worker 13 (1 SE + 1 S of Paris) move 1 NW G Riv and Cottage
I suggest not moving Military Units in Russia just yet, not even Bombarding, so that we can react to whatever Stalin does in the next turnset.
Galley 6 can move 2 N to 1 S of Lyons
Galley 7 might as well head 2 SE to see what's up with Mehmed's Culture and the Barb Culture
Galley 5 (1 W of St. Pete's) sails 1 E into St. Pete's and unloads our Catapult 4 there; maybe don't move Cat 4 yet until we see what Stalin has done
Galley 5 (when it is empty) can sail back 1 W to 1 W of St. Pete's
HA 9 (1 E of Hamburg) can move eastward along the Roads to 2 E of Munich, to join Chariot 13; I'd also leave Chariot 13 unmoved for now, so that we can react to whatever Stalin has done
Galley 1 (3 W of St. Pete's) stays in place (he will be used to chain the Catapult that is currently on Galley 3)
Galley 4 (3 W of St. Pete's) sails 1 NW > 1 W to the Fish (3 N of Hamburg's Sheep) to await Argent's Catapult
Argent's Catapult can move 1 SE GH Iron > 1 E GH For
Galley 3 (1 NW of Hamburg) sails 1 E > 1 NE to 1 NE + 1 N of Hamburg
Christian Missionary 3 spreads Christianity in Jackpot
If Christianity has spread in Jackpot and you're up for trying tech theft:
Gift the City of Jackpot to Hatty
Select a Spy in Jackpot
Click on the
Esiponage icon to perform a Spy Mission
Choose the Steal Technology Mission
Note the costs of Civil Service and Literature
If the cost of Civil Service is about 305 or less, then select Civil Service
Do not switch Civics if the game asks us to switch Civics
If we did not successfully steal Civil Service, repeat the same procedure with our Spies until we steal Civil Service.
Once we have Civil Service, repeat the same procedure of Steal Technology, but this time take Literature, followed by Music if we have enough successful Spies.
Test game for practicing stealing technologies
Christian Missionary 4 (in Orleans), now that we've spread Christianity successfully in Jackpot, can move eastward along the Roads to the G Road at 1 E of Cologne (on it's way to St. Pete's now that we've successfully spread Christianity in Jackpot--if we failed to spread Christianity in Jackpot, he'll be needed in Jackpot)
Chariot 19 (on Galley 2 at 1 NW of Orleans) unloads from the sea into Orleans
Galley 2 sails 1 W to 1 SE of London
Chariots 15 and 17 board Galley 2 at 1 SE of London
Galley 2 (with Chariots 15 and 17 aboard) sails 1 E to 1 NW of Orleans
HA 12 can Skip his turn in York, as we'll have Galley 2 pick him up next turn
If we stole Civil Service, set Research to 100% on Paper
Removing a City Wall via the World Builder (which is presumably the same as using a Spy to Sabotage a City Wall Building) partway through Bombardment may or may not reduce the remaining City Defences--I saw it happen for one City but not for the other City. Unfortunately, we don't have time to get Spies in place, so we'll just have to stick with 4% per Catapult per turn.
Thanks for mentioning where the Great General appeared! It's certainly not visible on the map anymore. Perhaps it got settled there or perhaps it ran away. It's up to you to tell us via the "Show Enemy Moves" game option as to where Units may have moved, so if you have that game option on (in the main game Options--Ctrl + o), and you didn't see it move anywhere, then it must have settled itself in Moscow (which is better than it getting used to join to a Unit).
Please don't sacrifice our Military Units. Stalin can rebuild his troops at will, but we cannot. Every Unit of ours counts. Also, every loss that we sustain means Stalin not talking for a longer period of time, so what may seem like buying us time actually makes us pay more turns of having to face Stalin in battle, meaning more losses overall from the extra turns where he's producing Military Units from every City and will not talk with us. Plus, you may not feel like it now, but every Chariot that we have puts us one bit closer to actually being able to succeed at capturing Moscow, instead of failing to capture it. The same may not be true of War Elephants, since it takes a Chariot two turns to be able to march toward Moscow and attack, while it will take a War Elephant 3 to 4 turns to do the same, and every extra turn means +1 City Defender, and +1 City Defender requires +2 to +3 attackers to kill it.
If we can capture Moscow, even with our last Chariot, we don't need to hold the City and can gift it away to Churchill until we can get Stalin to talk with us, then take it away from Churchill once we have a Cease Fire with Stalin. If we really need to use a Unit to bait Stalin, we can consider doing so next turn, without putting it in a position where it will die, but I'd suggest waiting until we see what Stalin has done before moving any of our Military Units near Russia next turn (other than unloading a Catapult directly into St. Pete's).
It is probably a pipe dream of expecting to get a War Elephant out of Yaroslavl', but we'll likely buy a turn while the Combat I + Shock + Medic I Axeman in Stalin's main stack heals--an AI stack tends to stick together as a stack and thus when one Unit needs to heal, they all waste time waiting for it to heal. That turn is an illusion, though, since we actually cannot complete a War Elephant until T110, 3 turns from now. I'd even suggest giving away Yaroslavl' now if Churchill were willing to talk with us, so as to avoid luring Stalin's stack and then hope that it would either go for Rostov or go for Mehmed, rather than moving diagonally toward Moscow and then being able to either defend Moscow or make an assault on St. Pete's.
Along the lines of luring Stalin at Rostov, it's not a bad idea to leave Rostov only defended by a wounded Chariot, to try to lure his army in that direction.
Rostov can quickly make 2 War Elephants itself, with one being 2-pop-whipped and one being Chopped + 1-pop-whipped.
We could at least have the Rostov War Elephants move toward Moscow, though, to replace the Catapult defenders, then have the Catapult defenders retreat away from threatening Moscow, as the Catapult defenders (a Woodsman II Axeman and a Horse Archer) can later move quickly back toward Moscow. I don't think that we'd have the same luxury with a Yaroslavl'-built War Elephant and such a Unit would probably have to stay in Yaroslavl', where we might end up losing too many useful 2-movement-point attackers in order to get the War Elephant, making the Yaroslavl' War Elephant not worth it unless Stalin's stack continues to avoid approaching Yaroslavl'.
Yes, one of Stalin's Cities (one of the Cities that he currently owns) must have its Cultural Borders extending over top of one of our captured Cities in order for that captured City to be under threat of going into City Revolt.
The Spies in Egypt will just wait on the Stone Resources. We don't dare to spend the EPs on Sabotaging Resources just yet, as we don't know how many EPs we will need to steal Hatty's techs--we may need all of the EPs that we have saved up on Hatty in order to get her techs. We have a one-turn window in which to steal her techs.
Sabotaging Hatty's Stone Resources now won't help us, as Mehmed needs to be Pleased toward us before we'd benefit from Sabotaging Hatty's Stone Resources, as Mehmed will only trade us his freed-up Marble Resource if he is Pleased toward us and Mehmed is currently Cautious toward us.
As such, I think that we should play it safely and stop trading a Resource with Darius, as Darius is Mehmed's Worst Enemy. Getting Corn from Darius is not worth missing out on building MoM, the National Epic, and the Heroic Epic, not to mention later The Taj Mahal.
Okay, if we get the York Work Boat first, we don't Chop either Forest next turn, we instead 1-pop-whip the Work Boat next turn, then, on the following turn (T109), we'll have regrown to Size 2 just as we put overflow Hammers from the Work Boat and 2 Chops into the Settler, which minimizes the time needed to be able to 1-pop-whip the Settler (only needing to spend 1 turn building the Settler before the Settler becomes a 1-pop-whipping action). Sounds perfect.
Sure, by the very nature of Chopping out a location for New Nottingham to be settled, the Worker in England will be spawn-busting, so we don't need to keep any Military Units in England for spawn-busting purposes, particularly with Churchill's Galley having been sunk in Nottingham and thus our Cities not being under threat of an amphibious assault (unless you want to tell us that Churchill's Galley sailed away before we captured Nottingham, but I don't see it anywhere).
We may need 1 Unit in England to act as a Military Police Unit for London; perhaps we'll use Axeman 3, since it will take him quite a number of turns to arrive in Russia, but we don't have to decide which Unit yet... perhaps it will be the Axeman that gets built in London.
Suggested PPP
T107, 200 BC
Cancel this trade with Darius:
Corn to Napoleon REAL for Sheep
Spoiler :
Ask Mehmed to attack Moscow
Spoiler :
Worker 6 (in Lyons): Rename him to Worker 13
That Worker can move 1 NW G Riv Road Farm > 1 W G Riv > Cottage
Worker 2 (1 N of Gold Coast) STOPS (we can have him help to Road the Incense next turn, to save Hatty's Worker a turn)
Paris switches G For to that 1 SE + 1 S Cottage
Athens switches PH Mine -> GH Mine
Athens works: Fish, Sheep, GH Mine, and PH Mine
Worker 10 (2 S of Rostov) starts Chopping the P For Road (for our 2nd Rostov-built War Elephant)
Zhuge (in Rostov) moves 1 E and Skips his turn
Spoiler :
Axe 6 (2 E of St. Pete's) moves 1 S GH For Road and Skips his turn (to guard our Cats)
Cat 2 (1 SE of St. Pete's) moves 1 E GH For Road
Cat 3 (1 SE of St. Pete's) moves 1 E GH For Road
HA 4 (3 S of St. Pete's) moves 1 NE G Riv Wheat > 1 NE GH For Road (to guard our Cats)
Now that we have two stack defenders for our Cats without making any misclicks:
Axe 4 (1 SE of St. Pete's) moves 1 NW into St. Pete's (to avoid threatening Moscow)
Axe 8 (3 N of Rostov) moves 1 S G Riv Fur For (getting him closer to our army without being in Moscow's Cultural Borders)
Chariot 18 stays in St. Pete's
Chariot 17 (1 E of Ruby Bay) moves toward London along the Roads
T108
Ask Mehmed to attack Moscow
York 1-pop-whips Work Boat
Hamburg 1-pop-whips Catapult
Cologne 1-pop-whips Granary
Ivory Coast's Work Boat moves 1 W and nets the Fish
Ivory Coast works: Netted Fish
Rostov 2-pop-whips the War Elephant
Lyons-build Chariot moves into Paris to act as a Military Police Unit
Paris may need to assign what its citizen should work; note that we will want to work the 1 S G Riv, as it will get Cottaged this turn
Worker in the north-east of England can be named Worker 14
That Worker moves 1 SW G For (to 1 S of the TunH Sheep)
Axeman 3 (in north-east England) can use Forests to make his way toward London, say, 1 SW G For > 1 SW G For
Chariot 9 (in southern Egypt) keeps making his way out of the Desert pathway
Spy 11 (2 N of Ivory Coast) can move to Egypt's last Stone Resource
Worker 1 (1 S of Paris) moves 1 NW G Riv and Cottages
Worker 2 (1 N of Gold Coast) moves 1 NE Des Incense and Roads
Worker 3 moves 1 SW GH Deer For (we can Road that square)
If the Spearman has followed our Warrior 1, our Warrior 1 can also move 1 SW GH Deer For; otherwise, our Warrior 1 can just stay on the GH for now
Worker 4 moves 1 SE GH Gems Road Mine > 1 NE G For (1 SW of the Tun Iron) (we can Road this square for our Settler to connect up with the Iron's Road, allowing our Settler to be able to resettle Nottingham very quickly)
Worker 5 moves 1 N G Road > 1 NE G Riv Road (1 SE of Ruby Bay) > partial Farm > STOP (we'll Chop at York on T109)
Worker 6 (1 SE of Ruby Bay) partial Farm > STOP (we'll Chop at York on T109)
Worker 8 move 1 S G Riv (1 W of Cologne) and Farm
Worker 11 ( 1 SE + 1 E of Rostov) move 2 W to the P For at 1 S of Rostov
Worker 12 (1 SE + 1 S of Paris) move 1 NW G Riv and Cottage
Worker 13 (1 SE + 1 S of Paris) move 1 NW G Riv and Cottage
I suggest not moving Military Units in Russia just yet, not even Bombarding, so that we can react to whatever Stalin does in the next turnset.
Galley 6 can move 2 N to 1 S of Lyons
Galley 7 might as well head 2 SE to see what's up with Mehmed's Culture and the Barb Culture
Galley 5 (1 W of St. Pete's) sails 1 E into St. Pete's and unloads our Catapult 4 there; maybe don't move Cat 4 yet until we see what Stalin has done
Galley 5 (when it is empty) can sail back 1 W to 1 W of St. Pete's
HA 9 (1 E of Hamburg) can move eastward along the Roads to 2 E of Munich, to join Chariot 13; I'd also leave Chariot 13 unmoved for now, so that we can react to whatever Stalin has done
Galley 1 (3 W of St. Pete's) stays in place (he will be used to chain the Catapult that is currently on Galley 3)
Galley 4 (3 W of St. Pete's) sails 1 NW > 1 W to the Fish (3 N of Hamburg's Sheep) to await Argent's Catapult
Argent's Catapult can move 1 SE GH Iron > 1 E GH For
Galley 3 (1 NW of Hamburg) sails 1 E > 1 NE to 1 NE + 1 N of Hamburg
Spoiler :
Christian Missionary 3 spreads Christianity in Jackpot
If Christianity has spread in Jackpot and you're up for trying tech theft:
Gift the City of Jackpot to Hatty
Select a Spy in Jackpot
Click on the
Esiponage icon to perform a Spy MissionChoose the Steal Technology Mission
Note the costs of Civil Service and Literature
If the cost of Civil Service is about 305
or less, then select Civil ServiceDo not switch Civics if the game asks us to switch Civics
If we did not successfully steal Civil Service, repeat the same procedure with our Spies until we steal Civil Service.
Once we have Civil Service, repeat the same procedure of Steal Technology, but this time take Literature, followed by Music if we have enough successful Spies.
Test game for practicing stealing technologies
Christian Missionary 4 (in Orleans), now that we've spread Christianity successfully in Jackpot, can move eastward along the Roads to the G Road at 1 E of Cologne (on it's way to St. Pete's now that we've successfully spread Christianity in Jackpot--if we failed to spread Christianity in Jackpot, he'll be needed in Jackpot)
Chariot 19 (on Galley 2 at 1 NW of Orleans) unloads from the sea into Orleans
Galley 2 sails 1 W to 1 SE of London
Chariots 15 and 17 board Galley 2 at 1 SE of London
Galley 2 (with Chariots 15 and 17 aboard) sails 1 E to 1 NW of Orleans
HA 12 can Skip his turn in York, as we'll have Galley 2 pick him up next turn
If we stole Civil Service, set Research to 100% on Paper
Playing . . .
Report for turns 107 & 108
T107: Execute plan
IBT:
Church will now negotiate
KK has declared war on Stalin
Stalin's moves: stack of 12 units moves to 1SW of Orenburg; 3 spears move into Moscow from 2E, but axe heads NNW; spear advances on warrior
T108: Execute plan, but, after loosing three spies trying to steal CC (cost is only 215, plus hammers in spies), I leave that mission unaccomplished. Also, I moved chariot out of JP before gifting as a precaution due to ignorance.
Notes:
We could whip a spear, axe, or sword this turn in Yaro. Would suggest sword, as Moscow has no axes (though such a whipping might alter that fact).
Rather impressive culture for a barbarian city.
Good luck.
Save from Central: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG023_BC0175_01.CivBeyondSwordSave
T107: Execute plan
IBT:
Church will now negotiate
KK has declared war on Stalin
Stalin's moves: stack of 12 units moves to 1SW of Orenburg; 3 spears move into Moscow from 2E, but axe heads NNW; spear advances on warrior
T108: Execute plan, but, after loosing three spies trying to steal CC (cost is only 215, plus hammers in spies), I leave that mission unaccomplished. Also, I moved chariot out of JP before gifting as a precaution due to ignorance.
Notes:
We could whip a spear, axe, or sword this turn in Yaro. Would suggest sword, as Moscow has no axes (though such a whipping might alter that fact).
Rather impressive culture for a barbarian city.
Good luck.
Save from Central: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG023_BC0175_01.CivBeyondSwordSave
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
Great job! Things look really good!
That was a nice break of luck in regards to Kublai. It seems that it was Mehmed's doing, based on how Stalin feels toward Mehmed.
The Jackpot luck was unfortunate, but we still have 2 tries to get what we want, with the last attempt having the greatest odds, if the odds in the game don't lie.
With a bit of luck, Hatty with Liberate Jackpot back to us after 4 turns, to allow us to try stealing techs from her again; failing that, we can just pay additional EPs to steal the remaining techs from her.
Once we get Mehmed up to Friendly status, we'll have as many as 3 Spies that can come back home from Egypt to help with making another attempt to steal techs.
Hmmm, it's an interesting idea to cold-whip in Yaroslavl'. I'll have to play around in a test game to see how many Hammers we'd get, to see which Unit might be best to pick, based on what we could then whip given the overflow Hammers.
That Jackpot Chariot will be quite useful in Paris, since Paris unexpectedly has additional Unhappiness due to War Weariness (War Weariness another consequence of losing battles against Stalin).
One item to figure out is the order in which our Cities will generate Great People. We'll be launching our Golden Age in 2 turns' time.
Churchill has built an Archer in Vlad.
Moscow seems to have its Spearmen back in it, with 4 Spearmen, 1 Swordsman, and 1 Archer inside of the City. Maybe he has decided to take the bait of the wounded-Chariot-defended Rostov? If so, we lured the wrong stack, but we'll make it work.
Stalin's Axeman at 1 E of Yaroslavl' is acting as bait, tempting our stack to kill his Unit so that we'll walk next to his stack. No way will we fall for that tactic!
I'd probably leave our Axe 8 on the Fur Forest at 2 N of Rostov, in case Spearmen do come at Rostov, allowing our Axeman to attack a Spearman while remaining on a Forest.
The biggest challenge is St. Pete's--we could 3-pop-whip a Monastery there or we could wait 1 turn and 2-pop-whip it while losing 1 population point in between turns, or we could simply not whip it for 2 turns and lose 2 population points and then hire Artist Specialists during Caste System, losing a 3rd population point but actually having 10+ Culture.
The only other possible alternative would be to skip stealing Civil Service for now and steal Literature + Music. If we get lucky and steal Literature, the last tech theft opportunity will be at higher odds; getting Music now would mean only losing 1 population point instead of 3 population points, which would help with getting another Great Person out of St. Pete's, but at the cost of delaying Civil Service, meaning a delayed Bureaucracy and no 20% bonus to research on Paper.
I think that we'll just have to stick with Civil-Service-first, since it's so important for us to get that tech.
If St. Pete's lost 2 population points, the City could feed itself while being able to hire a couple of Artist Specialists.
So, I suppose that the safest approach is to build the Monastery but don't whip it, then optionally whip the Monastery next turn or just don't whip it and wait for Caste System while the City continues to shrink, probably putting the Hammers into a different build item, such as a Granary.
EDIT: Cold-whipping 2 population points nets us 40 Hammers. That's a complete Swordsman or a complete Spy, or a complete Axeman/Spearman with 5 overflow Hammers.
A cold-whipped Scout gives us 20/15 Hammers, so a complete Scout plus 5 overflow Hammers.
A cold-whipped Monastery gives us 60/60 Hammers, the same amount that we'd get from 2-pop-whipping when not cold-whipping.
Yaroslavl' only has enough squares to work to sustain a City Size of 2, so if we were to cold-whip a Swordsman, we'd still lose 1 population point.
So, we would either cold-whip a Swordsman/Axeman/Spearman plus cold-whip a Scout
OR
We would lose 1 population point and whip a War Elephant, a Horse Archer, or a Catapult on the following turn, but that assumes that Stalin's stack will go for Kublai instead of us, which is not likely
St. Pete's might just cold-whip a Unit such as a Spearman/Axeman/Swordsman and then plan to hire Artist Specialists during our Golden Age.
We also need to think about anything else that we want whipped, as we won't be able to whip while in Caste System.
That was a nice break of luck in regards to Kublai. It seems that it was Mehmed's doing, based on how Stalin feels toward Mehmed.
The Jackpot luck was unfortunate, but we still have 2 tries to get what we want, with the last attempt having the greatest odds, if the odds in the game don't lie.
With a bit of luck, Hatty with Liberate Jackpot back to us after 4 turns, to allow us to try stealing techs from her again; failing that, we can just pay additional EPs to steal the remaining techs from her.
Once we get Mehmed up to Friendly status, we'll have as many as 3 Spies that can come back home from Egypt to help with making another attempt to steal techs.
Hmmm, it's an interesting idea to cold-whip in Yaroslavl'. I'll have to play around in a test game to see how many Hammers we'd get, to see which Unit might be best to pick, based on what we could then whip given the overflow Hammers.
That Jackpot Chariot will be quite useful in Paris, since Paris unexpectedly has additional Unhappiness due to War Weariness (War Weariness another consequence of losing battles against Stalin).
One item to figure out is the order in which our Cities will generate Great People. We'll be launching our Golden Age in 2 turns' time.
Churchill has built an Archer in Vlad.
Moscow seems to have its Spearmen back in it, with 4 Spearmen, 1 Swordsman, and 1 Archer inside of the City. Maybe he has decided to take the bait of the wounded-Chariot-defended Rostov? If so, we lured the wrong stack, but we'll make it work.
Stalin's Axeman at 1 E of Yaroslavl' is acting as bait, tempting our stack to kill his Unit so that we'll walk next to his stack. No way will we fall for that tactic!
I'd probably leave our Axe 8 on the Fur Forest at 2 N of Rostov, in case Spearmen do come at Rostov, allowing our Axeman to attack a Spearman while remaining on a Forest.
The biggest challenge is St. Pete's--we could 3-pop-whip a Monastery there or we could wait 1 turn and 2-pop-whip it while losing 1 population point in between turns, or we could simply not whip it for 2 turns and lose 2 population points and then hire Artist Specialists during Caste System, losing a 3rd population point but actually having 10+ Culture.
The only other possible alternative would be to skip stealing Civil Service for now and steal Literature + Music. If we get lucky and steal Literature, the last tech theft opportunity will be at higher odds; getting Music now would mean only losing 1 population point instead of 3 population points, which would help with getting another Great Person out of St. Pete's, but at the cost of delaying Civil Service, meaning a delayed Bureaucracy and no 20% bonus to research on Paper.
I think that we'll just have to stick with Civil-Service-first, since it's so important for us to get that tech.
If St. Pete's lost 2 population points, the City could feed itself while being able to hire a couple of Artist Specialists.
So, I suppose that the safest approach is to build the Monastery but don't whip it, then optionally whip the Monastery next turn or just don't whip it and wait for Caste System while the City continues to shrink, probably putting the Hammers into a different build item, such as a Granary.
EDIT: Cold-whipping 2 population points nets us 40 Hammers. That's a complete Swordsman or a complete Spy, or a complete Axeman/Spearman with 5 overflow Hammers.
A cold-whipped Scout gives us 20/15 Hammers, so a complete Scout plus 5 overflow Hammers.
A cold-whipped Monastery gives us 60/60 Hammers, the same amount that we'd get from 2-pop-whipping when not cold-whipping.
Yaroslavl' only has enough squares to work to sustain a City Size of 2, so if we were to cold-whip a Swordsman, we'd still lose 1 population point.
So, we would either cold-whip a Swordsman/Axeman/Spearman plus cold-whip a Scout
OR
We would lose 1 population point and whip a War Elephant, a Horse Archer, or a Catapult on the following turn, but that assumes that Stalin's stack will go for Kublai instead of us, which is not likely
St. Pete's might just cold-whip a Unit such as a Spearman/Axeman/Swordsman and then plan to hire Artist Specialists during our Golden Age.
We also need to think about anything else that we want whipped, as we won't be able to whip while in Caste System.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
I'm going to suggest that instead of standing around, we start Pillaging.
Let's make it tougher for Stalin to get around, to try to make him fight on our terms.
Within the span of a couple of turns, a stack with 4 mounted Units and 1 Axeman can rip up 2 Cows and 1 Horse, while secondary Units rip up the Mines to the south of Moscow.
No production to spam 1 Unit per turn, Stalin? :0 Problem? ^.^
If we limit the movements of Stalin's stack, we can try to delay it by making it move around his territory 1 square per turn until Stalin is ready to talk with us, then throw everything at Moscow and Cease Fire/Peace Treaty, and with some clever dodging, we might be able to do so without having to engage his main stack.
5 Units from Yaroslavl' head to the southern-most Moscow Cow, then Pillage it and the next Cow on the following turn, followed by Pillaging the Horse Resource, to stop the threat of newly-built Chariots who can kill our Axemen and Horse Archers who can kill our Horse Archers and our Chariots.
Meanwhile, Units from around Rostov Pillage the G Riv For Road at 1 NE + 1 N of Rostov, then the G Riv Road 1 E of there, then the GH Riv Road Mine at 1 S of Rostov.
A third mini-stack consists of a cold-whipped Axeman and a Horse Archer who stays in Yaroslavl' for a turn to defend against Stalin's Axeman from retaking Yaroslavl', then they leave via the Road at 1 SW of Yaroslavl', the Horse Archer Pillages it on his way, and then move to the GH For Road at 2 W of Yaroslavl', to Pillage that and then the Mine at 2 S of Moscow--we'd just need another mounted Unit to join them on that square from the Rostov area, such as our Medic Chariot.
As long as we have 2 mounted Units with full movement points on a given square at the start of a turn, a mounted Unit can Pillage and move away, while a defending Axeman moves away, allowing a Pillaging Party to progress very efficiently.
The converse approach is that if we move 2 mounted Units onto a flatland square, we can Pillage it while our Axeman stays with the Pillaging Party. 4 mounted Units in a stack = 2 fully-Pillaged (non-Cottage-type) flatland Resources per turn, all while being able to be defended by an Axeman stack defender to prevent Spearmen from attacking us.
St. Pete's cold-whips an Axeman, as well, rather than just letting 2 population points disappear without a trace. At Size 8, the City can hire all Artists for 1 turn in our Golden Age and then at Size 7 can sustain 5 Specialists while working 2 Fish Resources.
For the Golden Age, we'll try to generate some Great People.
I am thinking that we'll soon want Representation (for our second Golden Age), so it will be nice to target Hatty after our Stalin war, by taking a break from further warring after we take down Moscow while we rebuild our empire. Capture The Pyramids, recapture our gift Cities, and let Hatty keep The Great Library City until she has teched Nationalism.
At the end of the Golden Age, we'll likely switch from Caste System into Slavery and from Pacifism into Organized Religion, so we should take these facts into account when deciding which City should generate a Great Person--for example, XO Cognac can't hire any Specialists out of Caste System, and neither can St. Pete's, but London and Paris can. XO Cognac will still generate GPP from The Great Lighthouse and will get a Library soon enough, so it could also finish a Great Person after the Golden Age.
Thus, it might be ideal to get Great Person #3 from St. Pete's, if we can swing it. 300 GPP / 5 * 9 = 300 / 45 = 9 turns... not actually possible. I suppose that we're just going to have to collect as many GPP as we can.
At the end of the Golden Age, we slip into Slavery + Organized Religion, whip Libraries or other Buildings, and the switch to Islam and do our best to spam Islam (hence the G Riv Farm being built in Ruby Bay, to help with whipping Missionaries).
Islam as a State Religion will hopefully be enough to make Mehmed like us enough to trade us Marble, and then we'll need some good luck with our Spies again for Sabotaging Stone Resources at Hatty.
PPP
Create 3 Pillaging Parties:
2 HAs, 2 Chariots, 1 Axeman for: 2 Cows + Horse
1 HA + 1 Axe for the P Road at 1 SW of Yaroslavl' and the squares to the south of Moscow
Units from around Rostov Pillage at 1 NE + 1 N of Rostov and head eastward from there, Pillaging as they go
Meanwhile, we Bombard at Moscow and do our best to chain as many Catapults to the front lines as we can
Forget about not threatening Moscow and just get our Units all over Stalin's butt--we're more concerned about his stack than anything else at this point
City builds: Focus on an upcoming Golden Age arriving, so if we want to whip something, get it whipped soon.
Items that will be worth whipping:
Orleans: 2-pop-whip Christian Misisonary
Lyons: 1-pop-whip Galley (we won't have enough population points to be able to 2-pop-whip it within 2 turns)
York: 1-pop-whip Settler
Argent: Build Swordsman then Catapult to be 2-pop-whipped
Hamburg: 1-pop-whip Chariot
Cologne: 1-pop-whip Chariot
St. Pete's: cold-whip Axeman
Rostov: 1-pop-whip War Elephant
Yaroslavl': cold-whip Axeman
Workers: Cottaging around Paris and pre-Chopping around Nottingham, plus other random tasks such as improving the Iron Mine at Argent
Get Christianity into St. Pete's and Paris.
Spies on Hatty's Stone Resources wait around until we're in the last turn of our Golden Age.
Golden Age plans: Bureaucracy (unless both of our Spies fail to steal Civil Service) + Caste System at the start of it
Slavery + Organized Religion + whipping on the last turn of it
Then Islam after having whipped Cities that benefit from Christianity's Organized Religion
If our Spies totally fail to get Civil Service, we can see if Hatty will take York, but I don't think that she will, since it's on a different landmass, but it's worth checking
Research: 100% on Paper with or without Civil Service
Southern navy: I'm still not positive what to do with it, but I imagine that once Moscow has fallen, we'll send our troops to our Galleys to hit up Hatty, at least taking on her capital. It looks as though if we built some Roads through Mehmed's territory, we could get our Units onto Galleys right around that Barb City, so that's where we can send our Galleys.
I'll divert a couple of Chariots from England to Paris so that we won't suffer from Unhappiness in Paris as War Weariness increases.
Athens can start on Moai Statues after its Granary, with the hope that the extra Culture will earn us some of those Food Resources.
With Bureaucracy and hired Specialists, we might not even need to Lightbulb Education; if we're low on Great People, we can just save 2 Great People for the next Golden Age without any Lightbulbing.
We'll keep asking Kublai and Mehmed to attack Stalin's Cities.
Let me know if there's anything else that you'd like to see in the PPP. I will plan to play at around the time that I posted the last PPP for Cactus Pete.
Let's make it tougher for Stalin to get around, to try to make him fight on our terms.
Within the span of a couple of turns, a stack with 4 mounted Units and 1 Axeman can rip up 2 Cows and 1 Horse, while secondary Units rip up the Mines to the south of Moscow.
No production to spam 1 Unit per turn, Stalin? :0 Problem? ^.^
If we limit the movements of Stalin's stack, we can try to delay it by making it move around his territory 1 square per turn until Stalin is ready to talk with us, then throw everything at Moscow and Cease Fire/Peace Treaty, and with some clever dodging, we might be able to do so without having to engage his main stack.
5 Units from Yaroslavl' head to the southern-most Moscow Cow, then Pillage it and the next Cow on the following turn, followed by Pillaging the Horse Resource, to stop the threat of newly-built Chariots who can kill our Axemen and Horse Archers who can kill our Horse Archers and our Chariots.
Meanwhile, Units from around Rostov Pillage the G Riv For Road at 1 NE + 1 N of Rostov, then the G Riv Road 1 E of there, then the GH Riv Road Mine at 1 S of Rostov.
A third mini-stack consists of a cold-whipped Axeman and a Horse Archer who stays in Yaroslavl' for a turn to defend against Stalin's Axeman from retaking Yaroslavl', then they leave via the Road at 1 SW of Yaroslavl', the Horse Archer Pillages it on his way, and then move to the GH For Road at 2 W of Yaroslavl', to Pillage that and then the Mine at 2 S of Moscow--we'd just need another mounted Unit to join them on that square from the Rostov area, such as our Medic Chariot.
As long as we have 2 mounted Units with full movement points on a given square at the start of a turn, a mounted Unit can Pillage and move away, while a defending Axeman moves away, allowing a Pillaging Party to progress very efficiently.
The converse approach is that if we move 2 mounted Units onto a flatland square, we can Pillage it while our Axeman stays with the Pillaging Party. 4 mounted Units in a stack = 2 fully-Pillaged (non-Cottage-type) flatland Resources per turn, all while being able to be defended by an Axeman stack defender to prevent Spearmen from attacking us.
St. Pete's cold-whips an Axeman, as well, rather than just letting 2 population points disappear without a trace. At Size 8, the City can hire all Artists for 1 turn in our Golden Age and then at Size 7 can sustain 5 Specialists while working 2 Fish Resources.
For the Golden Age, we'll try to generate some Great People.
I am thinking that we'll soon want Representation (for our second Golden Age), so it will be nice to target Hatty after our Stalin war, by taking a break from further warring after we take down Moscow while we rebuild our empire. Capture The Pyramids, recapture our gift Cities, and let Hatty keep The Great Library City until she has teched Nationalism.
At the end of the Golden Age, we'll likely switch from Caste System into Slavery and from Pacifism into Organized Religion, so we should take these facts into account when deciding which City should generate a Great Person--for example, XO Cognac can't hire any Specialists out of Caste System, and neither can St. Pete's, but London and Paris can. XO Cognac will still generate GPP from The Great Lighthouse and will get a Library soon enough, so it could also finish a Great Person after the Golden Age.
Thus, it might be ideal to get Great Person #3 from St. Pete's, if we can swing it. 300 GPP / 5 * 9 = 300 / 45 = 9 turns... not actually possible. I suppose that we're just going to have to collect as many GPP as we can.
At the end of the Golden Age, we slip into Slavery + Organized Religion, whip Libraries or other Buildings, and the switch to Islam and do our best to spam Islam (hence the G Riv Farm being built in Ruby Bay, to help with whipping Missionaries).
Islam as a State Religion will hopefully be enough to make Mehmed like us enough to trade us Marble, and then we'll need some good luck with our Spies again for Sabotaging Stone Resources at Hatty.
PPP
Create 3 Pillaging Parties:
2 HAs, 2 Chariots, 1 Axeman for: 2 Cows + Horse
1 HA + 1 Axe for the P Road at 1 SW of Yaroslavl' and the squares to the south of Moscow
Units from around Rostov Pillage at 1 NE + 1 N of Rostov and head eastward from there, Pillaging as they go
Meanwhile, we Bombard at Moscow and do our best to chain as many Catapults to the front lines as we can
Forget about not threatening Moscow and just get our Units all over Stalin's butt--we're more concerned about his stack than anything else at this point
City builds: Focus on an upcoming Golden Age arriving, so if we want to whip something, get it whipped soon.
Items that will be worth whipping:
Orleans: 2-pop-whip Christian Misisonary
Lyons: 1-pop-whip Galley (we won't have enough population points to be able to 2-pop-whip it within 2 turns)
York: 1-pop-whip Settler
Argent: Build Swordsman then Catapult to be 2-pop-whipped
Hamburg: 1-pop-whip Chariot
Cologne: 1-pop-whip Chariot
St. Pete's: cold-whip Axeman
Rostov: 1-pop-whip War Elephant
Yaroslavl': cold-whip Axeman
Workers: Cottaging around Paris and pre-Chopping around Nottingham, plus other random tasks such as improving the Iron Mine at Argent
Get Christianity into St. Pete's and Paris.
Spies on Hatty's Stone Resources wait around until we're in the last turn of our Golden Age.
Golden Age plans: Bureaucracy (unless both of our Spies fail to steal Civil Service) + Caste System at the start of it
Slavery + Organized Religion + whipping on the last turn of it
Then Islam after having whipped Cities that benefit from Christianity's Organized Religion
If our Spies totally fail to get Civil Service, we can see if Hatty will take York, but I don't think that she will, since it's on a different landmass, but it's worth checking
Research: 100% on Paper with or without Civil Service
Southern navy: I'm still not positive what to do with it, but I imagine that once Moscow has fallen, we'll send our troops to our Galleys to hit up Hatty, at least taking on her capital. It looks as though if we built some Roads through Mehmed's territory, we could get our Units onto Galleys right around that Barb City, so that's where we can send our Galleys.
I'll divert a couple of Chariots from England to Paris so that we won't suffer from Unhappiness in Paris as War Weariness increases.
Athens can start on Moai Statues after its Granary, with the hope that the extra Culture will earn us some of those Food Resources.
With Bureaucracy and hired Specialists, we might not even need to Lightbulb Education; if we're low on Great People, we can just save 2 Great People for the next Golden Age without any Lightbulbing.
We'll keep asking Kublai and Mehmed to attack Stalin's Cities.
Let me know if there's anything else that you'd like to see in the PPP. I will plan to play at around the time that I posted the last PPP for Cactus Pete.
I agree with the PPP. Just a suggestion, Argent, for this turn, might work a whale instead of the Tun Deer. We lose the hammer to Buffy so it is trading 2 food for 2 commerce.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
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Yes, we will have excess overflow Hammers, but BUFFY will convert the Hammers into Gold at a 1:1 ratio, so we'd still end up with the Commerce-equivalent if we completed our Lighthouse now. I.e. 4 F + 2 H where the 2 H get converted into Gold is probably still more in our favour than 2 F + 2 C. It's when we don't use the BUFFY Mod that BtS makes excess overflow Hammers disappear into thin air. It's one of those "altered gameplay" parts of the "Bts Unaltered Gameplay" (BUG) Mod that makes up a part of BUFFY, but it's a positive change, since that portion of the code was hastily changed a couple of times back and forth in the final few BtS patches and the end result probably was not the desired one. Of course, people have argued that Failure Gold from building a National Wonder in multiple places is unfair to harness,
I'm not sure what the best way to deal with the situation is, though... perhaps better than getting the Lighthouse is to build a Swordsman this turn (we will make just over 40 Hammers) and then build a Catapult next turn so that we can 2-pop-whip the Catapult before switching Civics and only then complete the Lighthouse with overflow Hammers?
If we went Lighthouse -> Catapult, we could only 1-pop-whip the Catapult and then, as you say, we won't be getting all of our Hammers due to the Lighthouse getting too many Hammers in it; ideally, we'd get Failure Gold from Resource-based Wonders for our Hammers, earning 1 Hammer -> 2 Gold, but the AIs aren't building a lot of Wonders, so at best we could do so for Moai. At present, I think that I'd rather take the Hammers from Argent as Hammers, since we need Units to help us secure Moscow.
So, consider the plan to be Sword -> Cat -> 2-pop-whip Cat, unless you want to propose a different idea.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
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Some things to think about:
What are we going to do if Frederick decides to declare war on us when the Peace Treaty runs out? Should we be aiming to get some City Defenders before we slip into Caste System, say, whipping an Archer in each of Hamburg and Cologne and an Axeman in Athens before we slip into Caste System and leave our pants down?
Should we speed up Joao's research by giving him Civil Service?
What are we going to do if Frederick decides to declare war on us when the Peace Treaty runs out? Should we be aiming to get some City Defenders before we slip into Caste System, say, whipping an Archer in each of Hamburg and Cologne and an Axeman in Athens before we slip into Caste System and leave our pants down?
Should we speed up Joao's research by giving him Civil Service?
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
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Turnset Report
T108, 175 BC
We start things off with a bang and get Civil Service and Literature from Hatty.
Chariot 21 moves to garrison Paris and Paris focuses on growing
XO Cognac switches a Spy to a Coast
Orleans needs to build a Missionary now in order to whip it on T109 so that it can exist on T110 and spread in Paris at the start of our Golden Age. But, Orleans makes too many Hammers, and the Cow is needed, so Orleans works a GH Mine instead of the Iron
Lyons will need to 1-pop-whip its Galley, so we will slow-build the Galley to make it a 1-pop-whipping action
As for York, I'm thinking that it will be useful to keep in a Golden Age relative to its increased Colonial Maintenance Costs, especially since London won't be working the Horse and Stone Resources that get enhanced by a Golden Age, and we won't need to whip Forges to a while, so we can delay when Joao takes York from us
Argent builds a Swordsman
For Hamburg, I'm torn between an Archer or a Chariot, but I think that I'll start on an Archer next turn, after the Granary has been completed, for safety's sake.
Cologne is tricky; if we want to be able to 1-pop-whip both a Chariot and an Archer (actually, a Chariot and an Axeman by stealing the Iron next turn when Hamburg steals Cologne's Fish), we're going to need to delay when we complete the Granary, earning less Food overall but being able to 1-pop-whip 2 build items on T110. I think that this sacrifice of some lost will be worth it to get a City Defender into Cologne.
So, for now, Cologne starts on a Chariot and can build an Axeman next turn to make it a 1-pop-whipping action with help from the borrowed Iron
I'm not totally sure about Ruby Bay, but I think that after the Granary, we should get either a Lighthouse or an Islamic Monastery. I think that we can go for the Lighthouse and then, if we decide near the end of the Golden Age to stay in Pacifism, we can simply 2-pop-whip a Monastery. An Islamic Monastery will net us +2 Hammers per turn, and it will increase the Flasks in a City with 2 Gems Mines, but completing it may compete initially with getting Islamic Missionaries out
Athens can slow-build an Axeman (without needing to whip) easily enough, so let's put 1 turn of Hammers into an Axeman now and then we can finish it off within 2 turns at a later time--we'd only need 2 turns to get it defending the City if Frederick were to send troops our way
Ivory Coast's Work Boat won't be whippable, since we won't grow for 3 turns, so we'll just have to work the Ivory once we hit Size 2
St. Pete's cold-whips an Axeman
Yaroslavl' cold-whips an Axeman and a Scout, with the Axeman selected
Bombarding at Moscow commences and we are down to 42% City Defences there.
We set Research to 100% on Paper and will learn it within the span of 2 turns; all that we will need is to somehow get enough Gold to keep funding our research and we can probably self-tech Education faster than we could Lightbulb it.
In that way, we can aim to get a Great Merchant out of XO Cognac and a Great Scientist out of Paris for our second Golden Age.
I have XO Cognac steal Paris' Farm--we might be able to squeeze out one more population point in XO Cognac if we delay when we hire Specialists; I haven't checked the math, but it will be close.
Since we'll be in a Golden Age in 2 turns' time, we'll want Christianity in St. Pete's at that time. So, the Christian Missionary is going to steal a Galley space from a Catapult, delaying one Catapult by one turn.
Also, with Stalin's Spearman near to Argent, I'm thinking that an Axeman will be better to build in Argent. We'll still be able to 2-pop-whip a Catapult, so I think that this approach will be slightly better. No Swords for us.
We no longer have a Trade Network connection with Kublai, as we must have been getting it indirectly through Russia and then through another AI, so we don't have Foreign Trade Routes with Kublai. That fact will be another reason to hang onto York during (at least most of) the Golden Age.
Pillaging Party #1 moves to Moscow's 1 SE G Cow
We Pillage the Road at 1 NW of Moscow
Cat 4 leaves St. Pete's toward Moscow
We're not going to be able to Pillage the Road at 1 SW of Yaroslavl', as it is within our Cultural Borders, but everything else that we'd planned to Pillage looks Pillageable.
We ask both Kublai and Mehmed to attack Moscow
Seeing no reason against, I gift Copper to Joao
I also send Zhuge to Yaroslavl', allowing 1 more Horse Archer to join our Pillaging Party #1, to ensure that we can keep Pillaging even if we were to get attacked.
Seeing no complaint against the tech plan with Frederick, I trade:
20 Gold from Frederick <-> Alphabet
Stalin must have few free spaces that he feels safe about improving, as he's Cottaging-over a Farm at 1 S of Yekaterinburg. "Must keep the Workers working for the sake of them continuously working."
T109, 150 BC
Stalin appears to have 3 separate stacks of Units all moving together as they move into the Forest at 1 E of Yaroslavl'. After our Units move out of Yaroslavl', we'll Cease Fire with Churchill and gift Yaroslavl' to Churchill. I think that I'll just rename the City to "Yar," to save having to keep typing that apostrophe.
Frederick's Worker that completed a Road for us near Cologne seems to be walking the long way around to Essen (the City settled to the north of Athens), probably to Mine his second Copper Resource.
Kublai moves a Scout in Scandinavia toward the east and Stalin's Spearman moves to threaten it; of course, Kublai will be able to run away, leading Stalin's Spearman toward Argent.
York completes a Work Boat and builds a Settler
Hamburg completes a Catapult and builds an Archer
Gold Coast completes a Lighthouse and builds a Granary
St. Pete's completes an Axeman and builds a Granary
Rostov completes a War Elephant and builds a War Elephant
The Apostolic Palace Vote comes up, asking us to Stop Trading with Darius. Since our Diplo Policy is to refuse requests to Stop Trading, I vote No. Our 3 total votes out of more than 100 votes are unlikely to make any sort of difference.
Our Pillaging Party #1 rips up two Cows by Moscow
We Bombard Moscow's City Defences down to 34%
Here's a picture of the Russian Theatre
I couldn't decide whether to send our Spies to Macau or Jackpot, so I asked Hatty. She said that we could have Jackpot, so I think that the decision has been made. Jackpot it is! That said, we probably won't get Music until we're ready to steal Nationalism from Hatty. Are we okay to wait that long to get Music from her? I see no rush to get it.
We complete 2 more Cottages near Paris and have XO Cognac start working them
Orleans 2-pop-whips a Christian Missionary for Paris
We have plenty of EPs on Stalin to keep an eye on the area around his Cities, so we switch our EP Weights to:
Weight 1 on Hatty, Weight 0 on everyone else
Paper in 1 turn, Great Person #2 in 1 turn
We Chop into the Settler at York
We ask Mehmed and Kublai to attack Moscow
With Frederick not being anyone's Worst Enemy, we execute the plan:
Trade 10 Gold from Frederick <-> Currency
Churchill has learned Monarchy, while Darius has learned Horseback Riding, so they likely traded techs with each other (Churchill is still researching Metal Casting).
Mao learned Meditation
Joao is no one's Worst Enemy, so we trade:
20 Gold from Joao <-> Civil Service
Mehmed seems to have wasted most of his troops on a different front:
T110, 125 BC
Stop Trading with Darius barely fails:
68 Votes to stop / 75 needed / 121 total
We say No for 3 votes
Hatty says No for 50 votes
Mehmed says Yes for 30 votes
Saladin says Yes for 38 votes
Note that Hatty keeps spreading Islam to her newly-founded Cities
Stalin's stack (what looks to be 4 separate stacks grouped as one big stack) has moved to the G Road Cottage at 1 N of Yar. There are 12 Units in his stack
Christianity has spread in St. Pete's
Moscow's Cultural Borders have expanded, stealing St. Pete's Fish and Rostov's Wheat
St. Pete's is in danger of going into City Revolt, so we might randomly not get a chance to hire Specialists there during our Golden Age; sigh.
Christianity has spread in Paris
Lyons 1-pop-whips a Galley; we'll work the G Riv Farm this turn to grow to Size 3 within 1 turn, after which we can work both of the Fur and the Wine
We received a Great Scientist in London, but it doesn't really matter, as he'll be used for a Golden Age
York 1-pop-whips its Settler
Argent 2-pop-whips its Catapult
Hamburg 1-pop-whips its Archer
Cologne 1-pop-whips its Chariot and 1-pop-whips its Axeman, with the Chariot to be completed first, to see if it can help out at Russia
Gold Coast works its netted, Lighthouse-improved Fish to be able to grow within the span of only 4 turns
Rostov 1-pop-whips its Catapult
I think that we're done with our whipping, so we'll slip into our Golden Age shortly
Mehmed has learned Monarchy, while Kublai has learned Mathematics
Stalin has learned Meditation, while Mao has learned Priesthood
It seems that several AIs are making their way toward learning Feudalism
We lost access to Wheat due to Stalin's Culture, but fortunately, we didn't need the extra Health in any of our Cities yet
Kublai no longer had 3 Gold per Turn available for trade
We triple-check that we've done all of the whipping and then we launch our first Golden Age, switching into Caste System + Bureaucracy, then begin hiring Specialists in Paris, XO Cognac, London, and St. Pete's
Literature won't unlock any Wonders for Joao, but Paper will unlock The University of Sankore, and Joao has our Stone, so he gets Paper in exchange for switching into Bureaucracy
With Moscow's Cultural Borders up to 40% from the Cultural Borders having expanded, our Units prepare to group up to form a counter-stack, either to engage Stalin on the defensive, engage him on the offensive leading with our Catapults if he moves to poor-defensive terrain, or to simply keep enough of our Units alive to capture Moscow.
T111, 100 BC
Too bad we hadn't thought to advance on Stalin's stack one turn sooner, as he just moved onto flat land with his stack at 1 SE of Moscow. But, we were so focused on trying to Bombard Moscow that the thought hadn't occurred to us.
From here, it may make sense to try to form a stack at 1 W of Moscow on the GH For, Pillaging and retreating our Units at 1 S and 2 S of Moscow, then reacting to what Stalin does while we Bombard for a turn; if he moves into Moscow, we assume that he'll go 1 NW toward St. Pete's, so we then move to 1 NW of Moscow, forcing him to move to 1 W of Moscow. We won't fight him on that GH For, so we could retreat to 1 SE of St. Pete's, forcing him to either move onto flat land at the Wheat shared between St. Pete's and Moscow or to take the longer way around our stack on the way to St. Pete's.
We should probably decide on what to do with our generation of Great People. I'm going to suggest: Great Scientist out of Paris in 4 turns, followed by a Great Merchant out of XO Cognac, with St. Pete's and London simply collecting GPP for the future.
We have another Missionary from Orleans; I'm not sure what to do with it, but I was thinking possibly using it in north-east England, but by then we'll probably want Islam in that City to spread with a 100% chance, so maybe in Cologne, which can theoretically steal up to 4 Food Resources if we get the 4th one from Frederick, although the City is only at Size 1. Argent might be another option.
I'm thinking that we might as well build infrastructure in York, gift it to Joao, then ask for the City back a turn later after our Cultural Borders have swamped the City again, with us getting to keep any infrastructure that got built.
Maybe it's time for a Lighthouse in Hamburg, although the City won't have any production power to build much of anything while in Caste System. Maybe that City will be where we should spread Christianity, hiring some Specialists as the City grows
Athens can start on Moai Statues, although initially, it looks like we'll just be able to work 1 Clam and 2 Coast squares; the Culture from the National Wonder will eventually earn us more squares to work, but we might just end up using the Hammers for Failure Gold, so I could also see a valid argument for pumping out Horse Archers, thus I think that Horse Archers will make more sense, at least until we see some evidence that we'll make some progress against that Barbarian Culture.
Another option could be a Barracks and The Heroic Epic, with or without Marble. Without Marble, it costs us 4 Horse Archers or 4 Galleys to be able to make double Hammers, so after building 8 Horse Archers or 8 Galleys, we'll have broken even. Hmmm, without Marble, it doesn't sound all that great of an option. So, maybe a mix of Galleys and Horse Archers will be the way to go, with us aiming to use Galleys to assault Mehmed's Cities after we hit up Stalin, on our way to attacking Hatty.
I wasn't sure what to build in Jackpot, with it probably not mattering at 1 Hammer per turn, but it will probably matter soon. I wasn't sure if it made sense to build a Granary, but there'd be a very high chance of recapturing it if we declared war on Hatty shortly after gifting her Jackpot a second time, so it probably does make sense to build a Granary there with a Chop and a Whip when we're back in Slavery.
Hatty will have Incense for trade in about 5 turns.
We should be able to settle a City in north-east England next turn (T112). Any thoughts on a City name?
Orleans should be able to finish its Settler for Sweden in 3 turns' time, which we can Galley-chain into position.
Frederick keeps whipping (he just whipped Munich).
Our Paris Cottages are in good shape, and we just connected up our Lyons Fur for Resource-trading purposes.
Our Forbidden Palace plans in Rostov have taken a back seat to trying to win the war against Stalin, but if we go for Istanbul via Galley assault after taking down Moscow, we'll earn more Forests around Rostov to be able to Chop into a Forbidden Palace.
I could use some feedback on some of these comments and then I can try to continue playing again in a day.
The toughest part will be taking Moscow; the second-most toughest part will be dealing from a war declaration from Frederick (which hasn't happened yet, fortunately). Other than that, I think that our Great-People-generation plan is pretty much set--it's annoying that we can't get a Great Scientist for Lightbulbing Education, but I don't see a way to get a Great Person out of London or St. Pete's ahead of both Paris and XO Cognac.
I suppose that one option could be for Paris to get the 100% Great Scientist, then XO Cognac almost but doesn't fully get its Great Merchant and later whips a Market, but then we'd be greatly delaying when we could start our second Golden Age, so I don't think that such an alternative is valid.
I think that we'll just have to be happy with being able to generate 2 Great People and some partial Great People, with us using the Great Scientist from Paris + the Great Merchant from XO Cognac in our 2-Great-Person Golden Age, and then using a Great Artist from St. Pete's, a semi-random Great Person from London, and a 3rd Great Person from somewhere else (maybe XO Cognac again) for our 3-Great-Person Golden Age, with those Great People being generated during our 2-Great-Person Golden Age.
Ideally, we'd finish off The Taj Mahal during one of those Golden Ages, perhaps with massive Chops or perhaps with a lucky attempt to get a Great Engineer.
Paused, saved game from central
T108, 175 BC
We start things off with a bang and get Civil Service and Literature from Hatty.
Chariot 21 moves to garrison Paris and Paris focuses on growing
XO Cognac switches a Spy to a Coast
Orleans needs to build a Missionary now in order to whip it on T109 so that it can exist on T110 and spread in Paris at the start of our Golden Age. But, Orleans makes too many Hammers, and the Cow is needed, so Orleans works a GH Mine instead of the Iron
Lyons will need to 1-pop-whip its Galley, so we will slow-build the Galley to make it a 1-pop-whipping action
As for York, I'm thinking that it will be useful to keep in a Golden Age relative to its increased Colonial Maintenance Costs, especially since London won't be working the Horse and Stone Resources that get enhanced by a Golden Age, and we won't need to whip Forges to a while, so we can delay when Joao takes York from us
Argent builds a Swordsman
For Hamburg, I'm torn between an Archer or a Chariot, but I think that I'll start on an Archer next turn, after the Granary has been completed, for safety's sake.
Cologne is tricky; if we want to be able to 1-pop-whip both a Chariot and an Archer (actually, a Chariot and an Axeman by stealing the Iron next turn when Hamburg steals Cologne's Fish), we're going to need to delay when we complete the Granary, earning less Food overall but being able to 1-pop-whip 2 build items on T110. I think that this sacrifice of some lost will be worth it to get a City Defender into Cologne.
So, for now, Cologne starts on a Chariot and can build an Axeman next turn to make it a 1-pop-whipping action with help from the borrowed Iron
I'm not totally sure about Ruby Bay, but I think that after the Granary, we should get either a Lighthouse or an Islamic Monastery. I think that we can go for the Lighthouse and then, if we decide near the end of the Golden Age to stay in Pacifism, we can simply 2-pop-whip a Monastery. An Islamic Monastery will net us +2 Hammers per turn, and it will increase the Flasks in a City with 2 Gems Mines, but completing it may compete initially with getting Islamic Missionaries out
Athens can slow-build an Axeman (without needing to whip) easily enough, so let's put 1 turn of Hammers into an Axeman now and then we can finish it off within 2 turns at a later time--we'd only need 2 turns to get it defending the City if Frederick were to send troops our way
Ivory Coast's Work Boat won't be whippable, since we won't grow for 3 turns, so we'll just have to work the Ivory once we hit Size 2
St. Pete's cold-whips an Axeman
Yaroslavl' cold-whips an Axeman and a Scout, with the Axeman selected
Bombarding at Moscow commences and we are down to 42% City Defences there.
We set Research to 100% on Paper and will learn it within the span of 2 turns; all that we will need is to somehow get enough Gold to keep funding our research and we can probably self-tech Education faster than we could Lightbulb it.
In that way, we can aim to get a Great Merchant out of XO Cognac and a Great Scientist out of Paris for our second Golden Age.
I have XO Cognac steal Paris' Farm--we might be able to squeeze out one more population point in XO Cognac if we delay when we hire Specialists; I haven't checked the math, but it will be close.
Since we'll be in a Golden Age in 2 turns' time, we'll want Christianity in St. Pete's at that time. So, the Christian Missionary is going to steal a Galley space from a Catapult, delaying one Catapult by one turn.
Also, with Stalin's Spearman near to Argent, I'm thinking that an Axeman will be better to build in Argent. We'll still be able to 2-pop-whip a Catapult, so I think that this approach will be slightly better. No Swords for us.
We no longer have a Trade Network connection with Kublai, as we must have been getting it indirectly through Russia and then through another AI, so we don't have Foreign Trade Routes with Kublai. That fact will be another reason to hang onto York during (at least most of) the Golden Age.
Pillaging Party #1 moves to Moscow's 1 SE G Cow
We Pillage the Road at 1 NW of Moscow
Cat 4 leaves St. Pete's toward Moscow
We're not going to be able to Pillage the Road at 1 SW of Yaroslavl', as it is within our Cultural Borders, but everything else that we'd planned to Pillage looks Pillageable.
We ask both Kublai and Mehmed to attack Moscow
Seeing no reason against, I gift Copper to Joao
I also send Zhuge to Yaroslavl', allowing 1 more Horse Archer to join our Pillaging Party #1, to ensure that we can keep Pillaging even if we were to get attacked.
Seeing no complaint against the tech plan with Frederick, I trade:
20 Gold from Frederick <-> Alphabet
Stalin must have few free spaces that he feels safe about improving, as he's Cottaging-over a Farm at 1 S of Yekaterinburg. "Must keep the Workers working for the sake of them continuously working."
T109, 150 BC
Stalin appears to have 3 separate stacks of Units all moving together as they move into the Forest at 1 E of Yaroslavl'. After our Units move out of Yaroslavl', we'll Cease Fire with Churchill and gift Yaroslavl' to Churchill. I think that I'll just rename the City to "Yar," to save having to keep typing that apostrophe.
Frederick's Worker that completed a Road for us near Cologne seems to be walking the long way around to Essen (the City settled to the north of Athens), probably to Mine his second Copper Resource.
Kublai moves a Scout in Scandinavia toward the east and Stalin's Spearman moves to threaten it; of course, Kublai will be able to run away, leading Stalin's Spearman toward Argent.
York completes a Work Boat and builds a Settler
Hamburg completes a Catapult and builds an Archer
Gold Coast completes a Lighthouse and builds a Granary
St. Pete's completes an Axeman and builds a Granary
Rostov completes a War Elephant and builds a War Elephant
The Apostolic Palace Vote comes up, asking us to Stop Trading with Darius. Since our Diplo Policy is to refuse requests to Stop Trading, I vote No. Our 3 total votes out of more than 100 votes are unlikely to make any sort of difference.
Our Pillaging Party #1 rips up two Cows by Moscow
We Bombard Moscow's City Defences down to 34%
Here's a picture of the Russian Theatre
Spoiler :
I couldn't decide whether to send our Spies to Macau or Jackpot, so I asked Hatty. She said that we could have Jackpot, so I think that the decision has been made. Jackpot it is! That said, we probably won't get Music until we're ready to steal Nationalism from Hatty. Are we okay to wait that long to get Music from her? I see no rush to get it.
We complete 2 more Cottages near Paris and have XO Cognac start working them
Orleans 2-pop-whips a Christian Missionary for Paris
We have plenty of EPs on Stalin to keep an eye on the area around his Cities, so we switch our EP Weights to:
Weight 1 on Hatty, Weight 0 on everyone else
Paper in 1 turn, Great Person #2 in 1 turn
We Chop into the Settler at York
We ask Mehmed and Kublai to attack Moscow
With Frederick not being anyone's Worst Enemy, we execute the plan:
Trade 10 Gold from Frederick <-> Currency
Churchill has learned Monarchy, while Darius has learned Horseback Riding, so they likely traded techs with each other (Churchill is still researching Metal Casting).
Mao learned Meditation
Joao is no one's Worst Enemy, so we trade:
20 Gold from Joao <-> Civil Service
Mehmed seems to have wasted most of his troops on a different front:
Spoiler :
T110, 125 BC
Stop Trading with Darius barely fails:
68 Votes to stop / 75 needed / 121 total
We say No for 3 votes
Hatty says No for 50 votes
Mehmed says Yes for 30 votes
Saladin says Yes for 38 votes
Note that Hatty keeps spreading Islam to her newly-founded Cities
Stalin's stack (what looks to be 4 separate stacks grouped as one big stack) has moved to the G Road Cottage at 1 N of Yar. There are 12 Units in his stack
Christianity has spread in St. Pete's
Moscow's Cultural Borders have expanded, stealing St. Pete's Fish and Rostov's Wheat
St. Pete's is in danger of going into City Revolt, so we might randomly not get a chance to hire Specialists there during our Golden Age; sigh.
Christianity has spread in Paris
Lyons 1-pop-whips a Galley; we'll work the G Riv Farm this turn to grow to Size 3 within 1 turn, after which we can work both of the Fur and the Wine
We received a Great Scientist in London, but it doesn't really matter, as he'll be used for a Golden Age
York 1-pop-whips its Settler
Argent 2-pop-whips its Catapult
Hamburg 1-pop-whips its Archer
Cologne 1-pop-whips its Chariot and 1-pop-whips its Axeman, with the Chariot to be completed first, to see if it can help out at Russia
Gold Coast works its netted, Lighthouse-improved Fish to be able to grow within the span of only 4 turns
Rostov 1-pop-whips its Catapult
I think that we're done with our whipping, so we'll slip into our Golden Age shortly
Mehmed has learned Monarchy, while Kublai has learned Mathematics
Stalin has learned Meditation, while Mao has learned Priesthood
It seems that several AIs are making their way toward learning Feudalism
We lost access to Wheat due to Stalin's Culture, but fortunately, we didn't need the extra Health in any of our Cities yet
Kublai no longer had 3 Gold per Turn available for trade
We triple-check that we've done all of the whipping and then we launch our first Golden Age, switching into Caste System + Bureaucracy, then begin hiring Specialists in Paris, XO Cognac, London, and St. Pete's
Literature won't unlock any Wonders for Joao, but Paper will unlock The University of Sankore, and Joao has our Stone, so he gets Paper in exchange for switching into Bureaucracy
With Moscow's Cultural Borders up to 40% from the Cultural Borders having expanded, our Units prepare to group up to form a counter-stack, either to engage Stalin on the defensive, engage him on the offensive leading with our Catapults if he moves to poor-defensive terrain, or to simply keep enough of our Units alive to capture Moscow.
T111, 100 BC
Too bad we hadn't thought to advance on Stalin's stack one turn sooner, as he just moved onto flat land with his stack at 1 SE of Moscow. But, we were so focused on trying to Bombard Moscow that the thought hadn't occurred to us.
From here, it may make sense to try to form a stack at 1 W of Moscow on the GH For, Pillaging and retreating our Units at 1 S and 2 S of Moscow, then reacting to what Stalin does while we Bombard for a turn; if he moves into Moscow, we assume that he'll go 1 NW toward St. Pete's, so we then move to 1 NW of Moscow, forcing him to move to 1 W of Moscow. We won't fight him on that GH For, so we could retreat to 1 SE of St. Pete's, forcing him to either move onto flat land at the Wheat shared between St. Pete's and Moscow or to take the longer way around our stack on the way to St. Pete's.
We should probably decide on what to do with our generation of Great People. I'm going to suggest: Great Scientist out of Paris in 4 turns, followed by a Great Merchant out of XO Cognac, with St. Pete's and London simply collecting GPP for the future.
We have another Missionary from Orleans; I'm not sure what to do with it, but I was thinking possibly using it in north-east England, but by then we'll probably want Islam in that City to spread with a 100% chance, so maybe in Cologne, which can theoretically steal up to 4 Food Resources if we get the 4th one from Frederick, although the City is only at Size 1. Argent might be another option.
I'm thinking that we might as well build infrastructure in York, gift it to Joao, then ask for the City back a turn later after our Cultural Borders have swamped the City again, with us getting to keep any infrastructure that got built.
Maybe it's time for a Lighthouse in Hamburg, although the City won't have any production power to build much of anything while in Caste System. Maybe that City will be where we should spread Christianity, hiring some Specialists as the City grows
Athens can start on Moai Statues, although initially, it looks like we'll just be able to work 1 Clam and 2 Coast squares; the Culture from the National Wonder will eventually earn us more squares to work, but we might just end up using the Hammers for Failure Gold, so I could also see a valid argument for pumping out Horse Archers, thus I think that Horse Archers will make more sense, at least until we see some evidence that we'll make some progress against that Barbarian Culture.
Another option could be a Barracks and The Heroic Epic, with or without Marble. Without Marble, it costs us 4 Horse Archers or 4 Galleys to be able to make double Hammers, so after building 8 Horse Archers or 8 Galleys, we'll have broken even. Hmmm, without Marble, it doesn't sound all that great of an option. So, maybe a mix of Galleys and Horse Archers will be the way to go, with us aiming to use Galleys to assault Mehmed's Cities after we hit up Stalin, on our way to attacking Hatty.
I wasn't sure what to build in Jackpot, with it probably not mattering at 1 Hammer per turn, but it will probably matter soon. I wasn't sure if it made sense to build a Granary, but there'd be a very high chance of recapturing it if we declared war on Hatty shortly after gifting her Jackpot a second time, so it probably does make sense to build a Granary there with a Chop and a Whip when we're back in Slavery.
Hatty will have Incense for trade in about 5 turns.
We should be able to settle a City in north-east England next turn (T112). Any thoughts on a City name?
Orleans should be able to finish its Settler for Sweden in 3 turns' time, which we can Galley-chain into position.
Frederick keeps whipping (he just whipped Munich).
Our Paris Cottages are in good shape, and we just connected up our Lyons Fur for Resource-trading purposes.
Our Forbidden Palace plans in Rostov have taken a back seat to trying to win the war against Stalin, but if we go for Istanbul via Galley assault after taking down Moscow, we'll earn more Forests around Rostov to be able to Chop into a Forbidden Palace.
I could use some feedback on some of these comments and then I can try to continue playing again in a day.
The toughest part will be taking Moscow; the second-most toughest part will be dealing from a war declaration from Frederick (which hasn't happened yet, fortunately). Other than that, I think that our Great-People-generation plan is pretty much set--it's annoying that we can't get a Great Scientist for Lightbulbing Education, but I don't see a way to get a Great Person out of London or St. Pete's ahead of both Paris and XO Cognac.
I suppose that one option could be for Paris to get the 100% Great Scientist, then XO Cognac almost but doesn't fully get its Great Merchant and later whips a Market, but then we'd be greatly delaying when we could start our second Golden Age, so I don't think that such an alternative is valid.
I think that we'll just have to be happy with being able to generate 2 Great People and some partial Great People, with us using the Great Scientist from Paris + the Great Merchant from XO Cognac in our 2-Great-Person Golden Age, and then using a Great Artist from St. Pete's, a semi-random Great Person from London, and a 3rd Great Person from somewhere else (maybe XO Cognac again) for our 3-Great-Person Golden Age, with those Great People being generated during our 2-Great-Person Golden Age.
Ideally, we'd finish off The Taj Mahal during one of those Golden Ages, perhaps with massive Chops or perhaps with a lucky attempt to get a Great Engineer.
Paused, saved game from central
Whipping Archers sounds like a good idea. Maybe even a chariot in Lyons (could sever double duty as MP in Paris).
Once we capture Moscow and get a cease fire, if we avoided a pyrrhic victory, we would have a number of troops close to Munich and Berlin
Edit: Saw that we got Civil Service and Literature. What about sending 1 spy to Jackpot and the other to Macau and try for more tech? Will not be as cheap but will be quicker (maybe try a steal in Jackpot after 1 turn stationary if we still have some culture bonus).
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
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I'm not sure about over-whipping Lyons; it at least has nice squares to work during a Golden Age (Fur and Wine). Hamburg and Cologne don't really have good squares to work.
In a Golden Age, Fur or River Wine = 2 F + 2 H + 5 C, which is a very strong square.
I think that I'll aim to gift/sell Civil Service to Joao and then use Literature to bribe him into Bureaucracy. While it's arguable that he'd be able to pump out more Military Units to make our job of conquering him tougher later, he might also build us a useful Wonder or two which we don't really have the production power to spare.
Sure, next turn, when our Spies have movement points, they can head out to cause trouble for Hatty again. Once we have enough EPs to keep watch on Stalin's Cities, we can switch our passive EP collection (0% EP Rate) to Hatty.
In a Golden Age, Fur or River Wine = 2 F + 2 H + 5 C, which is a very strong square.
I think that I'll aim to gift/sell Civil Service to Joao and then use Literature to bribe him into Bureaucracy. While it's arguable that he'd be able to pump out more Military Units to make our job of conquering him tougher later, he might also build us a useful Wonder or two which we don't really have the production power to spare.
Sure, next turn, when our Spies have movement points, they can head out to cause trouble for Hatty again. Once we have enough EPs to keep watch on Stalin's Cities, we can switch our passive EP collection (0% EP Rate) to Hatty.
